City Nature Challenge 2023: Overberg

Get involved in the City Nature Challenge - for fun and for nature.

Cities and towns around the world once again compete to see who has the most biodiversity in the friendly and fun City Nature Challenge, taking place from 28 April to 1 May. And this year, the Overberg is (once again) participating in this bioblitz-style competition. 

The City Nature Challenge, created by the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Loss Angeles in 2016, has subsequently grown into an international event engaging residents to document plants and wildlife and better understand urban biodiversity.  

Since South African cities joined in 2019, we have consistently delivered nature’s winners, with Cape Town, Overstrand, Garden Route and eThekwini taking a spot within the Top 30 on the leadership for most observations, the most species observed as well as last year.

All nature lovers are encouraged to join the challenge in 2023 over the weekend, to log all the plant and animal species they see in their gardens or their region. These nature lovers, or citizen scientists, log their observations using the nature app, iNaturalist. The following week, between 3 May and 8 May, those interested identify all the species recorded and logged on the app. 

You’re invited to join.

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Botanical Society of South Africa (BotSoc) together with Overberg District Municipality (Cape Agulhas, Swellendam and Theewaterskloof) and a host of partners across the city are organising nature walks in the Overberg - and are inviting anyone to join. 

The goal of the City Nature Challenge is to connect people to their local nature, and to each other. All the information collected throughout the weekend also feeds into local conservation and nature monitoring activities. 

South Africa’s involvement 

According to SANBI Citizen Science Manager, Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, “30 cities and regions across 6 African countries are participating this year, an increase from last year’s 21 participants. The competition to be nature’s richest town or region is really picking up.” 

The 20 South African entrants are Bloemfontein Buffalo City, City of Cape Town, eThekwini, Garden Route, iLembe, Joburg, KZN South Coast, Makgeng, Nelson Mandela Bay, Nelspruit, Overberg, Overstrand, Pietermaritzburg, Pondoland, Thohoyandou, Tshwane, Waterberg, Weskus, and Zululand. 

Learn via these tutorials:

Suvarna adds that even if your city, town or region is not participating, it’s still easy to join the City Nature Challenge, as part of the Global Project. Suvarna and Tony Rebelo, both at the South African National Biodiversity Institute are hosting a series of tutorials on how to use the iNaturalist application, the primary tool for participating in the Challenge.

There will be activities hosted across the region during the course of the weekend. “We’ll publish the full list of spots where we’ll be Bioblitzing/surveying together on our social media pages soon, so please keep an eye on our pages for more.” 

For more information on the City Nature Challenge and how to get involved contact crew@sanbi.org.za, BotSoc Southern Overberg, or Southern Overberg Citizen Scientists.

You can join the Overberg project on iNaturalist: City Nature Challenge 2023: Overberg · iNaturalist