Bush less battered

DURBAN’S bush-covered green lungs coped fairly well with the floods, thanks to the capacity of roots to hold in certain areas, according to KZN Wildlife and Environment Society of SA (Wessa) chairperson Margaret Burger.

Speaking after having a good look at Burman Bush, Virginia Bush and Pigeon Valley during last weekend’s iNature City Conservation Challenge, she said the natural bush was “all actually there to hold the water for these times like the floods that we’ve just had, which were unprecedented”.

However, where there was damage, it highlighted the importance of maintaining alien plant growth control, said Burger.

“Creepers cover the trees and that weighs them down and makes the branches heavy, just like the staghorn that we have seen increasingly invasive on any rough bark species.”

She also noted that Virginia Bush was “pretty flooded”.

The iNature City Conservation Challenge, which has 400 cities taking part – 20 in southern Africa – aims to record biodiversity.

About 120 Durbanites took part, photographing living things and loading them on to the iNaturalist app which, using artificial intelligence, immediately presents options of its identity, be it a plant, animal, insect or bird. Human experts also help.

Also on board are the SA National Biodiversity Institute and eThekwini Municipality. The winning city is expected to be announced over the weekend.

“I think there has definitely been an increase this year – each year it’s incremental. We have more observers. We have had more champions for areas coming on board and we’ve really focused on hot spots for biodiversity, like the eThekwini nature reserves,” said Burger.

Burger said it would be ambitious for Durban to hope to beat Cape Town when the final results came out. “They have more observers.” Another identification opportunity awaits in October, the Great Southern BioBlitz, which was started in Australia and involves only the southern hemisphere.