The University of Cape Town actively collaborates with local communities, statutory conservation bodies and civic groups to maintain and manage shared land ecosystems in and around Cape Town — including Table Mountain National Park, the Liesbeek River corridor, and community-based landscape initiatives in Philippi. In 2024 these collaborations combined research, citizen science, capacity building, restoration work and practical stewardship to protect biodiversity, reduce human–wildlife conflict, rehabilitate riparian corridors and enable community benefit from sustainable landscape management.

1. Urban Caracal Project — science + community reporting across Table Mountain National Park and surrounding green spaces
   The Urban Caracal Project (hosted by UCT’s Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa, iCWild) conducts long-term ecological research across the Cape Peninsula (including Table Mountain National Park) while explicitly using citizen-science reporting and community engagement to monitor caracals and other wildlife. The project lists SANParks, the City of Cape Town and private landowners as active collaborators and uses public reporting and outreach to reduce conflict and inform local stewardship and park management. UCT-reported coverage of the project and its public engagement activities was current through 2024.
2. UCT research & community partnership on the Liesbeek River (Liesbeek Life Plan / Friends of the Liesbeek)
   UCT academic units (notably the Urban Water Management research group / Future Water connections) have worked with the Friends of the Liesbeek and other civic partners to develop the Liesbeek Life Plan — a collaborative, community-facing framework for restoration, ecological rehabilitation and community stewardship of the Liesbeek River corridor.
   
   The Liesbeek Life Plan is a recently formed collaborative effort between the Friends Of the Liesbeek and UCT’s Urban Water Management research unit to contribute to plans and designs for restoring and offering better support to social and ecological life of the Liesbeek River. The primary aim is to provide a framework plan which will guide the building of ecological and social resilience in the Liesbeek River catchment while providing an “insurance policy” in order to safeguard and enhance the Liesbeek. This framework will also aim to address the relationship between ecology and human behavior by enhancing amenity and social value of the river. A secondary aim is to work together in a community of practice where we explore new ways of thinking from the knowledge and experiences of participants. This community of practice will include the knowledge and resources from various academic and professional bodies as well as from first-hand knowledge with community groups.
   
   The Liesbeek Life Plan and ongoing Friends of the Liesbeek activities explicitly describe joint workshops, monitoring, restoration volunteer events and shared planning that use the river as a “living laboratory” for students and community members. Evidence of the UCT–community collaboration and ongoing Liesbeek activity appears in the Liesbeek Life Plan materials and FoL reporting (with 2024 activity reported in FoL annual outputs).
3. Campus-area monitoring and community science (CampusWild / sightings mapping)
   UCT’s CampusWild and related research/communication channels publish wildlife sightings, mapping and outreach material that feeds into broader conservation knowledge for the Table Mountain catchment and informs community-oriented approaches to managing green corridors shared with neighbourhoods and public land managers. These outputs (sightings maps, public education posts) are part of the collaborative science and community awareness that supports shared ecosystem maintenance.