Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Wiki Loves Earth Goes International

Wiki Loves Earth Goes International

Wikimedia Ukraine organizes an international photo contest of natural heritage Wiki Loves Earth 2014. This is the second year when it is carried on. Last year Ukraine was the only participant, but now the contest consolidates already 14 countries!

This photo contest is being held from May 1 to May 31, 2014 in the large majority of countries. Although some (Germany, Ghana, the Netherlands) countries are going to conduct it in May and June. There are some countries (namely, Serbia) that will join us during June, 2014.

Lorneh Beach - Volta Region Ghana

These days we are at the middle of the contest, so we’re able to draw the first conclusions. We came to an inference that Wiki Loves Earth is interesting for many countries. It’s not only a great opportunity to show the charms of nature, but also a huge chance to draw public attention to the environmental problems and Wikipedian activities. The focus is not only on the sites of national importance, but also on the areas protected on the regional level, and on the widest variety of natural sites possible: forests, parks, gardens, rocks, caves and whatever is protected in the participating countries. This makes that most users will be able to find several natural heritage sites close to them.

More than 20 countries were ready to organize «Wiki Loves Earth». There are: Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iraq, FYR Macedonia, Nepal, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

However, only 13 of them were ready to start May 1. The reasons were different: from lack of time to governmental bureaucracy (as in some countries it was too hard to gain the lists of natural heritage sites from public authorities).

Nevertheless, Wiki Loves Earth is successfully going at 13 countries: Andorra&Spain, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Estonia, Germany, Ghana, Macedonia, Nepal, the Netherlands and Ukraine. A few days ago India has also joined the international contest.

So far nearly 20 000 photos from all over the world were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons under a free license. All photos will be freely licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these. It’s a good opportunity for Wikipedia to collect more free photos and use them as illustrations.

Now the first three leaders are Ukraine (4517 photos), Andorra&Spain (3468 photos) and Macedonia (3421 photos).

All countries have their own features. This is second time Ukraine participates in the contest, so Ukrainian team already had information about Natural Reserves and other protected areas. However, they still work with the State Department of Ecology and Natural Resources and update last year’s lists. One of the Ukrainian features is the fact that professional photographers take part in this contest. They give their works for free to be used in Wikipedia (of course under CC BY-SA 3.0 or other free license).

Armenia already has 1172 photos. Armenian team consists of only two people: Vachagan Gratian and Mher Bekaryan, who are both coordinating the contest in Armenia. The jury will consist of 5 organizers and members of Wikimedia Armenia. Also Wiki Loves Earth in Armenia has a special ID for wildlife (birds, animals).

At this moment Germany has 1873 pictures. This country had only 6 weeks for all preparations and start of contest. Now they are working on the jury: 4 applicants for the national jury and 1 for the international.

Macedonian team consists of 4 people. Two of them are organizers of this contest, one is for advertising and publicity and one for video tutorial. In Macedonia there is a very active and prolific participant - Darco Nikilovsky who uploaded near 1000 photos from his native country! A distinctive feature of contest in Andorra&Spain is the vast majority of all uploaded photos are from Catalan region. But Spanish team is working hard to attract the other regions! For Andorra & Spain the contest has had a good start with 1 out of 5 of all photos. They have also a dedicated Flickr group that works well with currently 100 more photos pending to transfer to Commons. 80% of the photos were uploaded by one user known as a very active participant in previous editions of Wiki Loves Monuments. At this moment they have 2965 photos from these two countries, 255 sites are photographed, 88 of them without any photo before the competition. The hard work for Spanish team was to prepare the lists. The concept of natural heritage was quite confusing for them with different levels of protection and different management offices. The greatest challenge was to engage a partner. There are 5 people in the organizing team. They have 11 local categories for awards by regions: Andorra, Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Land of Valencia, plus subregions for Catalonia.

Brazilian team collaborates with the biggest online magazine and negotiates with Nikon. One of the most popular technology portal in Brazil - Techtudo - published an article about "Wiki Loves Earth 2014". Brazil can brag about 1696 photos. Since the Brazilian team didn’t have a chapter and a group of very active people working together, it was complicated for them to plan and execute projects like that. Rodrigo Padula (a coordinator of the contest in Brazil) planned and executed a big deal of work himself. But he received support later from the other members of the Brazilian user group (with creating the lists of places and natural heritage). Another problem was with the local legislations that requires registration and authorization from the state for some kind of contests. They had to stop the negotiations with companies to get local support and local prizes because only cultural/artistic contests with no trademark/products/services associated, published/announced can be realized without a governmental authorization. So to avoid some bureaucracy they had to organize everything with some limitations. Brazilian team provided money prizes for 2 categories Best photo (1-st - R$2500,00; 2-nd - R$1500,00; 3-rd - R$1000,00) Best contributions ( 1-st - R$2500,00; 2-nd - R$1500,00; 3-nd - R$1000,00).

Nepali team is one of the most active, especially in the social media. They promote their Facebook page and work with an international one. Our colleagues from Nepal communicate with Nepal Tourism Board for getting the list of natural heritage. Also they are going to cooperate with Nepal Nature Conservation, UNESCO, ICIMOD, International Union for Conservation of Nature and other environment funds. Now they have 860 photos.

The Netherlands has made an official partnership with 20 existing National Parks that exist to collaborate on communication, organization of events and access to expert knowledge. Throughout the two months Wikimedia Nederland will be hosting photography & Wikimedia Commons workshops, including a private tour in different parks across the country. Now they have 313 photos. In the Netherlands our colleagues focused on the 20 national parks as a criteria for the pictures. Therefore they have 20 areas where people can take photos to enter the contest within 5 categories. For each national park there are pictures already available on Wikimedia Commons. Dutch team has three people from the Wikimedia Netherlands chapter at the office working on it: Sindy Meijer, Denise Jansen and Ellen Busink. They are responsible for communications & event organization. Of course they also have a workgroup WLE with volunteers, who do a lot of the technical aspects and provide support for Wikimedia Commons. The local jury set up consisting of 5 people. The prizes are already set. They have two main prizes: one for sound and one for photography, to spend a weekend in a national park of the Netherlands worth 300 euros each. Second prize photography: a garden observation camera that people can put in their garden to observe what's going on in their backyard. Then they have a third prize for each category of photography: a book on nature photography, a photography book on Dutch nature, a backpack and hiking guide on national parks, binoculars and a photography printed on wood.

In Austria there are 3298 uploaded photos. Austrian team consists of 4 volunteers who prepare the contest (lists, communication, technical support), 1 freelancer for website, folder and jury tool, 2 WMAT staff for support (PR, jury organization, liaison management with potential partner institutions). Their jury consists of 5 people: 1 Wikipedian, 1 professional photographer, 1 person from a civil society organization (International Association for the Advancement of Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges (IAAI), 1 public administration (Federal Environment Ministry), 1 scientist (Head of the Botanical Garden in Graz). Canon is a sponsor of WLE Austria. It sponsored two camera sets (worth 550 EUR each) as main prizes.

The official international site is available at http://wikilovesearth.org/ We also post all interesting information about the contest at the international Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/interwle

The most beautiful photos are immediately appeared at Instagram account (@wikilovesearth). A few days ago we started communication in Twitter (@Wikilovesearth). We try to update all these accounts as soon as possible!

This year all international teams have the same aim – to show the biggest numbers of environmental beauties of their countries and gather so many photos for Wikipedia as they can!

P. S. We would like to thank Lodewijk for his priceless experience shared (and still being shared) and Romaine for a sleepless night spent in the irc channel providing technical support, and we want to thank all volunteers doing small and big things here and there, helping out. P. P. S. The Brazilian User Group developed a tool to read database information and generate a report about the Wiki Loves Earth, including all participating countries listed on commons: http://tools.wmflabs.org/ptwikis/WLE