iNaturalist City Nature Challenge


Friday Apr 26, 2019 | 07:00-19:00

Cape Town will be participating in the iNatural City Nature Challenge from 26-29 April, where cities around the world compete to record the most observations of local wildlife (fauna) and plants (flora). Cape Town is one of the most biodiverse cities on Earth, so the challenge is on!

Communitree invites you to join us to map all the plants and animals at our priority sites. We require at least two volunteers at each site; one volunteer to map the plants and another to map the wildlife, but the more the merrier! By participating, not only will you will learn more about the nature in your city, but also provide us with an excellent baseline for monitoring the animal and plant species at our sites.

Everyone is encouraged to take part in this challenge. You can choose any day, between the 26th and 29th of April, to join in the fun. Simply download iNaturalist and sign up on our website, so we´ll know who is coming.

We will be hosting a training session, for those interested, to practice for the big event. These sessions will provide you with useful information on how to use iNaturalist, and handy photographic tips and tricks. Please indicate in the comment section, when signing up for the event, if you are interested in joining the training session.

About Monitoring activities

At Communitree we want to make sure that our work has a positive impact on the wider ecological functioning of the city's green infrastructure. That means that we want to go our and monitor our own work. We do this in different ways. One way is that we go out to our greening sites and we monitor the plants and the vegetation. We monitor for plant diseases, impact by the drought, damage to the plants, and other issues. If anything is wrong, our monitoring team will report this and our gardening volunteers will look into the matter. At the same time, we look for new plant growth, we try to observe the species that are present, and we see if everything is going according to the plan that we devised for the plot.

Another type of monitoring is related to the bird monitoring. By counting birds on our sites, we can get an idea of the ecological functioning of our plot. We are working together with the Iingcungcu sunbird project and the Cape Bird Club when it comes to training and bird monitoring, and we are excited to see what comes out of these efforts. To join bird monitoring work, you must have received some training, but we can always use an extra pair of eyes, in case you have not yet gone through the training.

Greening Site #53

Rosebank

This area is known as the "Sun Path", set up by the Friends of the Rosebank and Mowbray Green Belt (FROG). It is a beautiful stretch along the Liesbeek, providing a fantastic piece of indige...

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Coordinates: -33.94918, 18.47745 | Google Maps | Open Street Maps

Getting there

By public transport and walking: From Mowbray train and taxi rank, walk down Durban Road, away from Table Mountain. Cross over the robots of Liesbeek Parkway and turn right immediately after the bridge of Liesbeek River and walk along the pathway parallel to the river. We are at the mid point of the pathway. Google: 1 Hill Park Lane, Mowbray
If your taxi comes into town past Redcross Children's Hospital, get off after the hospital at the Caltex/Puma garage on Klipfontein Road, walk to Hill Park Road and turn left own this road. We are at the end of this dead-end road.
By bicycle: Ride along Liesbeek Parkway cycle path. At the corner of Durban/Klipfontein and Liesbeek Parkway, turn down Durban/Klipfontein away from Table Mountain, and cross over Liesbeek River. On the other side of Liesbeek River turn right onto the pathway parallel to the river immediately after the bridge. Go around the large box in the middle of the pathway and meet us at the midpoint of the pathway. Google: 1 Hill Park Lane, Mowbray
Car: Google: 1 Hill Park Lane, Mowbray

Go to our activities calendar

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We thank our 2019 sponsors for their support in our work. If your company or organisation wants to help support Communitree, click here to get in touch.