Plitvice joins nature challenge

Plitvice Lakes National Park and Croatia’s Lika-Senj County will join the 2026 City Nature Challenge from April 24 to April 27, opening the global wildlife-count event to one of the country’s best-known protected areas. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) The park said visitors and residents can take part by observing wild plants, animals and fungi and uploading records through iNaturalist during the four-day event. The announcement was published on April 13, 2026, by the park’s expert service news desk. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) The global challenge runs on two tracks: observation from April 24 to April 27, followed by identification from April 28 to May 3, when participants and volunteers help confirm what was photographed. iNaturalist describes it as a worldwide community-science biodiversity census focused on wild species in and around urban areas. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) (inaturalist.org) In Croatia, the 2026 edition is being organized by the Institute for Environment and Nature Protection within the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition. Plitvice and the wider Lika-Senj County area are among 12 Croatian counties with co-organizers this year, according to the park’s Croatian-language notice. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) That adds a protected landscape better known for lakes and waterfalls to an event built around public biodiversity records. Plitvice Lakes is Croatia’s oldest and largest national park, and the park says the area was proclaimed the country’s first national park on April 8, 1949. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr 1) (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr 2) The challenge has grown far beyond a single-city contest. The Nature Conservancy says the 2026 event asks people to use the iNaturalist app from April 24 to April 27, while the Bristol Natural History Consortium says more than 650 cities on all seven continents are taking part this year. (nature.org) (bnhc.org.uk) Plitvice is tying its participation to National Park Week, framing the challenge as a way for visitors to document species while they are already in the park. The park’s notice presents the event as both a public activity and a way to collect records that can support biodiversity knowledge. (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr) For participants, the assignment is simple: go outside between April 24 and April 27, photograph or record wild living things, and upload them to the iNaturalist project. Four days later, Plitvice’s visitors will be counting more than waterfalls. (inaturalist.org) (np-plitvicka-jezera.hr)