Great Southern Bioblitz 2020
In response to the City Nature Challenge, several southern Hemisphere cities have decided to run an Austral Spring challenge - the Great Southern Bioblitz. Simply we want data that will showcase our cities at their best, that will be useful (rather than at the worst possible time of the year in late autumn), and that will contribute meaningfully to species lists, management plans and documenting our biodiversity.
However, Cape Town already participated this year in the City Nature Challenge, and so our role here in this inaugural year will be subdued. Rather than the social, public and advertized event, we will be doing it quietly and personally.
However, we do want to evaluate whether in future we should stay with the City Nature Challenge or perhaps focus rather on the Great Southern Bioblitz.
So please, join in. Help us record our biodiversity. It is a fun time of the year for flowers and insects, so let us focus on these. It is an opportunity to evaluate how well our conservation areas are documented and what new we can find in them. Let us go for it.
Note that unlike the City Nature Challenge, the Great Southern Bioblitz will not focus planted or captive organisms. But at this time of the year, that hardly matters: there is so much to observe. But alien and ruderal invaders and escapees are included: so please record those.
