Every year at the end of April and beginning of May, cities around the world compete in a giant treasure hunt. Not for gold or hidden pirate maps, but for something far more valuable: life itself.
The City Nature Challenge is part science project, part adventure, and part scavenger hunt with muddy shoes and salty wetsuits. For a few days ordinary people become explorers, armed with nothing more than a phone or camera, recording the plants, animals, fungi, insects, and marine life around them.
The goal is simple: find and record as many species as possible in a specific place over a short period of time and upload your observations to inaturalist.org
The challenge will run from 24-27 April 2026 and the identification will be 10 days afterwards.
It sounds almost too easy. Spot something interesting, take a photo, upload it. Tiny action. Huge impact.
Why Do We Do It?
Because we cannot protect what we do not know exists.
Every observation helps build a picture of the biodiversity around us. That strange nudibranch on a kelp frond. The octopus hiding under a rock. The jellyfish drifting through the harbour. Even the weeds growing through a pavement crack. Every species becomes another puzzle piece in understanding our environment.
The information collected through the City Nature Challenge is used by scientists, conservationists, students, and researchers. It helps to:
- Map where species occur
- Detect changes in populations over time
- Identify invasive species before they spread
- Discover rare or previously unrecorded species
- Track the effects of climate change and pollution
- Support conservation decisions and protected areas
Sometimes these events even lead to major discoveries. New species have been recorded during these bioblitzes, and species thought to be absent from an area have suddenly reappeared like ecological plot twists emerging from the kelp.
Why It Matters in Cape Town
Cape Town is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. We sit where two oceans meet, with mountains, fynbos, kelp forests, reefs, beaches, estuaries, and wetlands all crammed into one spectacular patch of coastline.
You could walk from a tidal pool to a mountain trail and encounter an entire cast of characters:
- Bright sea stars and anemones
- Tiny blennies peeking from rock pools
- Strange nudibranchs that look like confetti with antennae
- Kelp forests that resembling underwater cathedrals
- Endemic fynbos plants found nowhere else on Earth
Cape Town is a biodiversity treasure chest. But it is also under pressure. Pollution, urban development, climate change, invasive species, and habitat destruction are constantly reshaping what lives here.
That is exactly why we need more eyes in the field. Or on the shore. Or underwater.
Divers Have a Secret Superpower
As divers, freedivers, and ocean lovers, we have access to a world that most people never see.
Every time you descend into the kelp, you are swimming through a living library. You might spot a rare sea slug, a shyshark egg case, a school of juvenile fish, or a species that has never been recorded at that site before.
The ocean is changing quickly. Species are moving. Some are becoming more common, others less so. Strange visitors appear after warm-water events. Sometimes we even find completely unexpected things. Like the ocean has quietly rewritten the script while no one was looking.
By taking photos and submitting them, you become part explorer, part detective, part underwater archivist đđ¸
Why You Should Get Involved
You do not need to be a scientist. You do not need expensive camera gear. You do not even need to know what you are looking at.
You just need curiosity and any camera.
Get involved because:
- Your observation could be scientifically important
- You will start seeing nature differently
- It makes every dive, hike, or beach walk more exciting
- You help build a long-term record of biodiversity
- It is a simple way to contribute to conservation
- It is genuinely fun
Once you start, it becomes strangely addictive. Suddenly you are the person lying flat on a jetty trying to photograph a nudibranch the size of a grain of rice while your friends wonder if youâve finally lost the plot.
You havenât. Youâve simply joined the wonderfully chaotic world of citizen science.
Small Photos, Big Consequences
A single photo may not seem important. But thousands of photos, collected over years, become incredibly powerful.
They tell us:
- What species are increasing
- What species are disappearing
- Where invasive species are spreading
- When something unusual is happening
Without this information, conservation becomes guesswork. With it, we can make better decisions to protect the places and species we love.
How To Take Part
Itâs easy:
- Go outside, to the beach, a rock pool, a dive site, a park, or your garden.
- Take clear photos of the plants, animals, or fungi you see.
- Upload them using the INaturalist platform linked to the City Nature Challenge
- Let the community help identify what you found.
Weâve linked the tutorial videos below that explain:
How to submit your observations with the mobile app
How to take useful photos
How to do identifications
Think of them as your field guide for the grand safari of sea slugs, seaweeds, and suspiciously photogenic limpets.
Because every observation matters. And the next important discovery might be waiting under the very next rock.