Today on World Day for Biodiversity we congratulate all our members who actively participating in this year’s Global City Nature Challenge 2024 at the end of April.  Meerkats, Cubs, Scouts, Rovers and Scouters around the country participated, working together to find and document the biodiversity in their neighbourhoods and to help put Scouting on the Biodiversity Map!

The table below shows the extent to which SCOUTS SA members embraced being citizen scientists!

If we take Gauteng for example – SCOUTS SA members there made 1,766 observations. The total for ALL observers in Gauteng including non-SCOUTS SA members was 8,917 observations. 19.8% of all the observations in Gauteng were therefore made by the 154 Gauteng Scouting members who took part in the City Nature Challenge!

The Western Cape Region continued to support the City Nature Challenge in a big way, but of course has had a head start by participating in the challenge since 2019.

In 2019 the Western Cape had just 4,661 observations with 149 observers and has grown considerably since then. This year the Western Cape had 12,935 observations, yes, twelve THOUSAND, submitted by the 624 SCOUTS SA members participating. This contributed 10.55% of all observations nationally.

Overall, the entire Western Cape Province had the highest number of observations with 53.89% of total National contributions. And collectively SCOUTS South Africa’s members contributed 12.92% nationally!! Well done to each and every one of our members who participated in this years’ City Nature Challenge!

* This is not unique observers. Some SCOUTS SA members shared phones.          

We look forward to growing our participation across the entire country once again in 2025!

Nigel Forshaw and Theo Rijs