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Richmond is one of 460 cities in the world that will be participating in the City Nature Challenge, a massive effort to track and showcase global diversity.
Photo by Jaana Björk
Richmond, one of 43 cities representing Canada in City Nature Challenge
Published 11:04 PDT, Mon April 24, 2023
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Canadians coast to coast will compete against a record number of 460 cities from 43 countries in the 2023 City Nature Challenge, a massive effort to track and showcase global biodiversity.
“This is a friendly international citizen science event designed to connect people to nature while helping monitor wildlife species distribution around the globe,” said Species at Risk and Biodiversity specialist with the Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF), James Pagé. “I’m thrilled with the tremendous growth in participation as this data will be invaluable to scientific research.”
As part of the collaboration with CWF, Richmond will be one of 43 cities that have united to represent Canada in the collaborative global competition to see which community can track the highest number of wildlife observations April 28 - May 1. Results will be announced after May 8.
Using a camera or the free iNaturalist app, the City Nature Challenge encourages people to upload species observations and sounds to the iNaturalist platform that become part of an international database of biodiversity. The present rate of loss of biological diversity is a growing global environmental threat facing humanity.
“During the City Nature Challenge and year-round, individuals can help scientists by contributing valuable observations for biodiversity research and conservation,” said Pagé. “We live in a big country and scientists can’t be everywhere, but by using smartphones and digital cameras as tools, iNaturalist helps everyday citizens connect with nature while helping to conserve it.”
While Canadian cities will compete against each other to see which one can engage the most people and accumulate the highest number of observations, the collective number will represent Canada’s total in the international competition. In 2022, almost 1.7 million observations were made, and more than 56,000 species were identified including more than 1,300 rare, endangered, or threatened species.
In Canada, 76,984 observations were made of 4,551 species. Greater Victoria earned top honours with 7,847 observations and the highest participants per capita. This year’s event runs in two parts: recording observations from April 28 - May 1 and identifying observations May 2 - 7.
The City Nature Challenge was established by the California Academy of Sciences and Natural Museum of Los Angeles in 2016. For more information, and a list of Canadians cities competing in 2023 visit inaturalist.ca/projects/city-nature-challenge-canada-2023-defi-nature-urbaine.
You can also contribute using iNaturalist all year by joining CWF’s Observation Nation project.
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