Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Girl Guides to tackle Nature Challenge
CAPE Town Girl Guides will be taking part in a worldwide challenge, documenting the city’s plants and wildlife.
The event encourages people to find and document plants and wildlife in cities across the globe. It’s a bioblitz-style competition where cities compete each other to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species and engage the most people.
Cape West Girl Guides are looking forward to competing later this month because of Cape Town’s impressive fauna and flora. They will be among a number of teams, schools and organisations who will represent Cape Town in the global event.
Rebecca Larkan,15, who will be part of the Girl Guides Cape West team, said: “I would like to be more aware of all the different reserves and parks around Cape Town and find out which plants, animals, and especially birds, live and maybe even breed in these places.
“I don’t think people realise how many amazing plants, birds and other species Cape Town has to offer. This challenge might discover lots of new fauna and flora around neighbourhoods and towns,” she said.
Fellow ranger Megan Bannister,13, said she expected to have fun and learn about new plants and animals.
“The environment is very important and we have to look after nature because we are the ones that are destroying it,” she said.
Communications and marketing chairperson at Girl Guides Cape West, Tanya Prinsloo, said they wanted the girls and their families to get out and see what nature has to offer.
“This is a fun event that families can enjoy together, units can run and even patrols can be organised. A unit can go on a hike over the weekend and can participate in the City Nature Challenge. A family can go camping and log some observations.
“I would love a patrol or group of adult leaders to go for a snorkel along the coast and log their observations of the rock pools and shallows. I know the water is cold, but what an adventure!
“This is the third year we’re participating and we’ve not only doubled our reach but we doubled our participant numbers too,” she said.
In 2019, Cape Town won two of the three categories at the challenge – the city with the most observations and the city with the most species. San Francisco in the US won the category for the most participants.
“This is a wonderful time to not only get outside, spend time in nature and with friends and family, but also for Girl Guides to be out there being seen and raising awareness of our organisation,” Prinsloo said
“One can share and learn from others around the world during an international challenge. To know we are connected and care about our planet,” she said.
The City Nature Challenge website said: “The first challenge was an eightday competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, engaging residents and visitors in documenting nature to better understand urban biodiversity.
“Over 20 000 observations were made by more than 1 000 people in a one-week period, cataloguing approximately 1 600 species in each location, including new records for both areas.
“During the 2016 challenge, we had so much excitement and interest from people in other cities that we decided we couldn’t keep the fun just to ourselves. In 2017 the challenge went national, and in 2018, the CNC became an international event.”