City Nature Challenge 2021
The City Nature Challenge is on again in 2021. It will run from Friday April 30th and runs until the end of Monday May 3rd. The review and identification period will continue to the end of Sunday May 9th.
Thank you for being a member of the Geelong CNC 2020 Project and contributing observations during last year’s event. I am writing to you now to let you know that the 2021 project and about the Geelong Project. We would appreciate your involvement again and ask that you join our project by clicking on the following link. https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021-geelong
It looks like the event will bigger this year with number of cities with over 400 locations confirmed as participating cities including 24 Australian. The locations are currently being loaded onto the master event project where worldwide progress can be monitored. https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021
Last year, Geelong performed well despite the COVID lockdown movement restrictions. We were third for observations in the ‘Cities below a million people’ category. Our region has a wide range of habitats and locations to visit. In 2020, 1282 species were observed and identified during the CNC BioBlitz. This is a great effort but as the biodiversity/species checklist in iNaturalist shows, there is plenty of upside for expansion of last year’s tallies. The 2021 event is a week later in the year and we were fortunate to have good weather in 2020 so lets hope by some miracle that a few fine days prevail in the first week of May thus time around.
We hope you are free to help this year and contribute some observation on one or more days of the event. It would be great to break the 6000 observations barrier!
For the Geelong region, we have the support of the City of Greater Geelong, Surf Coast Shire, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority, Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority and the Bellarine Catchment Network to assist with promoting the bioblitz. With 139 observers last year, we are also hopeful to have more contributors in 2021 so if you are a member of Friends or Landcare Group, please spread the word.
By joining the City Nature Challenge 2021 Geelong Project, we can keep you up to date on event news and when underway you can monitor our region's progress as well as see yours and other’s observations.
Regards Rod Lowther
