Bad weather couldn’t stop this years' record breaking bioblitz!
The sixth installment of the annual worldwide City Nature Challenge took place from the 26th-28th of April this year, and our project partners in Luxembourg made full use of the occasion to share FRAMEwork insights and connect with their community of nature enthusiasts!
Originally conceived of by scientists at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, the international bioblitz-style competition, which invites people around the world to make nature observations using the iNaturalist app, has now expanded to over 400 areas worldwide!
The goals of the CNC are to:
Connect people in urban/metro areas to their local nature
Connect people to each other: build community in person & online around local nature
Collect urban biodiversity data available to use for science, management, and conservation
Grow volunteer biodiversity documentation globally
Have fun through some friendly competition!
For three years in a row, the FRAMEwork partner for Luxembourg, LIST, and our cluster in the Born region, have taken part. Once again, they partnered with FRAMEwork friends Ramborn Cider Co. and NGO BeeTogether to engage members of the community with the event and help make it as successful as possible.
Ramborn provided a base camp where LIST scientists, BeeTogether volunteers and employees of the Natur-& Geopark Mëllerdall could explain to visitors how to use iNaturalist. Several guided tours with scientists and farmers were organised, so that visitors could learn about the management of the Born cluster and the background of the apps use there. There were also three stands established along the trail through the orchards, giving out additional guidance and information.
Adverse weather conditions resulted in less visitors than previous, sunnier years, but 150 members of the community turned out - and their enthusiasm wasn’t dampened. When we caught up with LIST, they shared that,, in fact:
“More observations were made compared with previous years, suggesting that the motivation of the participants that decided to come under the given conditions was higher compared with previous years!”
Altogether 850 observations were uploaded this year, which is a fantastic contribution to Citizen Science monitoring in the region.
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