A hearty congratulations to all who have participated in the CNC2024 - from city champions + bioblitz organizers to observers who spent many hours in the field, then sorting through the copious images taken before uploading and the identifiers who spent many hours sharing their knowledge and raising the number of species recorded during the 4-day global event.
The City of Cape Town featured #10 for the number of observations made and #8 for the number of species recorded on the global leaderboard. See here for more global results.
We have much to celebrate as the southern African community as 37 cities, representing 10 African countries participated in the CNC 2024 (compared to 31 cities, representing 6 African countries in CNC 2023). A total of 136, 234 observations were made by 2,980 observers. Thus far 10,093 species have been identified by 1465 identifiers with this number increasing as more identifications are made with time. The number of casual observations has decreased to 9.1% from 12.5% last year implying that participants are focussing on wild species (ie. neither captive nor cultivated).
The most observed species in Africa was Osteospermum moniliferum (Bietou) with 715 observations.
Ranked in number of people participated:
- South Africa*: 2778
- Mozambique (Maputo): 28
- Kenya (Nairobi + Kajiado): 22
- Namibia (Windhoek + Katima Mulilo): 22
- Botswana: 12
Malawi (Lilongwe): 10
Nigeria (Port Harcourt/ Gokana): 10
- Madagascar (Antananarivo): 9
- Eswatini (Hhohho + Lubombo +Manzini):4
- Gabon (Bakoumba): 2
Ranked in number of observations made:
- South Africa*: 118,676
- Botswana: 1,523
- Namibia (Windhoek + Katima Mulilo): 1,302
- Eswatini (Hhohho + Lubombo +Manzini): 776
- Nigeria (Port Harcourt/ Gokana): 434
- Mozambique (Maputo): 389
- Madagascar (Antananarivo): 321
- Malawi (Lilongwe): 302
- Gabon (Bakoumba): 274
- Kenya (Nairobi + Kajiado): 153
Ranked in number of species recorded:
- South Africa*: 9,028
- Botswana: 571
- Namibia (Windhoek + Katima Mulilo): 517
- Eswatini (Hhohho + Lubombo +Manzini): 415
- Mozambique (Maputo): 207
- Malawi (Lilongwe): 177
- Madagascar (Antananarivo): 160
- Nigeria (Port Harcourt/ Gokana): 112
- Kenya (Nairobi + Kajiado): 110
- Gabon (Bakoumba): 108
- Since 25 South African cities participated, the results will be featured per province as a separate journal entry.
Number of people participated:
- Western Cape (Weskus, Cape Town, Overstrand, Garden Route): 1,551
- KwaZulu-Natal (KZN South Coast, eThekwini, KZN Midlands, Dolphin Coast, Zululand): 496
- Gauteng (Joburg, Tshwane): 342
- Eastern Cape (Nelson Mandela Bay, Albany CoE, Buffalo City, Pondoland, Umzimvubu): 237
- Limpopo (Waterberg Capricorn, Thohoyandou): 69
- Mpumalanga (Wakkerstroom, Mbombela): 52
- North West (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom): 36
- Free State (Bloemfontein): 19
- Northern Cape (Nieuwoudville): 5
Number of observations made:
- Western Cape (Weskus, Cape Town, Overstrand, Garden Route): 64,025
- KwaZulu-Natal (KZN South Coast, eThekwini, KZN Midlands, Dolphin Coast, Zululand): 23,031
- Eastern Cape (Nelson Mandela Bay, Albany CoE, Buffalo City, Pondoland, Umzimvubu): 15,742
- Gauteng (Joburg, Tshwane): 8,907
- Limpopo (Waterberg Capricorn, Thohoyandou): 2,518
- North West (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom): 1,818
- Mpumalanga (Wakkerstroom, Mbombela): 1,595
- Northern Cape (Nieuwoudville): 756
- Free State (Bloemfontein): 302
Number of species recorded:
- Western Cape (Weskus, Cape Town, Overstrand, Garden Route): 4,893
- KwaZulu-Natal (KZN South Coast, eThekwini, KZN Midlands, Dolphin Coast, Zululand): 3,521
- Eastern Cape (Nelson Mandela Bay, Albany CoE, Buffalo City, Pondoland, Umzimvubu): 2,703
- Gauteng (Joburg, Tshwane): 1,582
- Limpopo (Waterberg Capricorn, Thohoyandou): 890
- Mpumalanga (Wakkerstroom, Mbombela): 731
- North West (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom): 472
- Northern Cape (Nieuwoudville): 245
- Free State (Bloemfontein): 139
Number of identifiers:
- Western Cape (Weskus, Cape Town, Overstrand, Garden Route): 934
- KwaZulu-Natal (KZN South Coast, eThekwini, KZN Midlands, Dolphin Coast, Zululand): 542
- Eastern Cape (Nelson Mandela Bay, Albany CoE, Buffalo City, Pondoland, Umzimvubu): 448
- Gauteng (Joburg, Tshwane): 340
- Mpumalanga (Wakkerstroom, Mbombela): 196
- Limpopo (Waterberg Capricorn, Thohoyandou): 167
- North West (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom): 107
- Northern Cape (Nieuwoudville): 60
- Free State (Bloemfontein): 50
While we understand that a proportion of observations are not of good photo quality to ascertain identification to species level, with time those keen on surveys can only improve their photography skills. We encourage our identifiers to share tips and tricks for their respective taxon groups and produce videos and crib notes that we share via our YouTube channel. Also, assist us by marking observations recorded in gardens as cultivated/ captive.
Our participation in CNC annually brings much fun being in nature, while feeding foundational biodiversity data to our national datasets, especially that of endemic, threatened, and protected species.
More importantly, CNC data is being analyzed by local government agencies responsible for managing and reporting on biodiversity at the municipal scale.
The South African Red List Plants and Animals Project produced 473 Threatened species
405 Plant species
33 Bird species
12 Mammal species
5 Reptile species
6 Amphibian species
5 Ray finned fish species
Note that these are records as per the South African Red List Plants and Animals Project which does not have all taxonomic groups listed.
The NEMBA Alien Species South Africa Project produced 265 Invasive species
242 Invasive Plant species
7 Invasive Bird species
5 Invasive Fish species
4 Invasive Insect species
2 Invasive Mammal species
2 Invasive Mollusk species