Today is the last competition day for Algeria, Germany, Ghana, India and the Netherlands! Last hours to contribute your photos to and to take part in competition in these countries’ contests!
Remember that Serbia will still have their site open until July 16 and Syria till August 1:)
Gorgeous news from Andorra – we can enjoy beautiful pictures from this green country!
Andorran team carries on an intrigue and refuses to give any details such as places of these photos. So, we can show you only winners without prize-list!
Germany is one of the participants who can receive your photos up to June 30.
You can take part in the contest with homemade photos with particular national parks, nature reserves, natural monuments, Nature Park, Biosphere Reserve and other objects from the list.
For your attention several beautiful places in Germany where you can take your photos and upload its to the Commons.
Especially protected are the spruce-dominated highland forests, mixed mountain forests of fir, beech and spruce trees and water meadow spruce woods in the valleys. Although a few remnants of ancient forest remain, the National Park area is still heavily influenced by the former forestry industry. Since nature is now left to take its course again, there is no human intervention when there are catastrophic events such as large scale bark beetle infestation. This resulted in the 1990s in the death of a portion of the high elevation forests and triggered controversial discussions amongst the residents of the National Park, which highlighted differing attitudes to the wilderness. As the result of a compromise, bark beetle is now fought in the expansion area.
he island has largely retained its intended character as an idyll of nature: in addition to several free-ranging peacocks, other native and exotic birds can be found in captivity, complemented by a rich variety of flora. The entire island is designated as a nature reserve and since 1990 has been a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site, along with the several other castles and parks in the Potsdam/Berlin area. It can only be reached by a small ferry, but is a popular tourist destination. It is administered by the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten (SPG).
Rare animals of the Harz National Park include the Dipper, the Black Stork,Peregrine Falcon, the European Wildcat and especially the Eurasian Lynx. The last lynx in the Harz Mountains had been shot in 1818, but in 1999 a project for reintroducing was established. Since 2002 several wild lynxes gave birth. An attempt to return the Capercaillie (Auerhuhn) however did not succeed.
All information about Wiki Loves Earth in Deutschland you can find here.
Today the participant of Wiki Loves Earth open its Wikimedia Commons page for your photos!
Remember that the rules are common for all countries! So, if you have your own beautiful Serbian pictures of natural heritage – you are welcome to share it with Wikipedia.
Ghanaian team of Wiki Loves Earth international photo contest has decided to continue acceptance of photos up to June 30, 2014. So, all participants who want to take part in it have a chance to upload their works during this month.
The contest started May 1, 2014. During this time we received 540 beautiful photos.
Terms of participation are samr for all countries. Only sites of natural heritage can be different. In Ghana there are:
There are fantastic prizes to be won by the top 10 pictures. All these 10 pictures will qualify for the next stage Wiki Loves Earth (World) prizes when they fall in the top15 photos they are once again awarded with prizes from the Wiki Loves Earth International team.
Visit one of amazing Ghanaian national parks, take photos and upload them to the Wikimedia Commons.
Mole National Park is Ghana‘s largest wildlife refuge. The park is located in northwest Ghana on grassland savanna and riparianecosystems at an elevation of 150 m, with sharp escarpment forming the southern boundary of the park. The park’s entrance is reached through the nearby town of Larabanga. The Lovi and Mole Rivers are ephemeral rivers flowing through the park, leaving behind only drinking holes during the long dry season. This area of Ghana receives over 1000 mm per year of rainfall. A long-term study has been done on Mole National Park to understand the impact of human hunters on the animals in the preserve.
The Bui National Park is found in Ghana. It was established in 1971. This site is 1820 km². The reserve is notable for its Hippopotamuspopulation in the Black Volta. The endangered black and white colobus monkey and a variety of antelopes and birds are also present. Part of the park will be inundated by the reservoir of the Bui Dam, which has been under construction since 2009. The filling of the reservoir is expected to begin in 2011.
Digya National Park is the second largest national park and the oldest protected area in Ghana. It is located in the Brong-Ahafo Region. Digya National Park was created in 1900 as a protected area, the first in Ghana. The park is home to at least six primate species and elephants belonging to some of the less studied species in Africa. The elephant population in the park is the second largest in Ghana. There are also manatees and clawless otters in arms of Lake Volta that extend into Digya National Park. More than 236 species of birds live in the park. This park is the only wildlife territory in Ghana to border on Lake Volta, the largest man-made body of water in the country.
Kakum National Park, located in the coastal environs of the Central Region of Ghana. The uniqueness of this park lies in the fact that it was established at the initiative of the local people and not by the State Department of wildlife who are responsible for wildlife preservation in Ghana.The most notable endangered species of fauna in the park are Diana monkey, giant bongo antelope, yellow-backed duiker andAfrican elephant. It is also an Important Bird Area recognized by the Bird Life International with the bird area fully overlapping the park area. The bird inventory confirmed 266 species in the park, including eight species of global conservation concern. One of these species of concern is the white-breasted guineafowl. Nine species of hornbill and the African grey parrot have been recorded. It is very rich in butterflies as well, and a new species was discovered in 1993. As of 2012, the densest population of forest elephants in Ghana is located in Kakum.
Bia National Park is a national park in the Western Region of Ghana. It is also a biosphere reserve with a 563 square kilometer resource reserve. It has some of Ghana’s last remnants of relatively untouched forest complete with its full diversity of wildlife. Some of the tallest trees left in West Africa are found in this national park.
The contest Wiki Loves Earth will focus on the National Parks in the Netherlands. Pictures from those areas (if submitted between May 1 and June 30, 2014) will compete for the prizes. Join! We look forward to your contribution.
Netherlands has twenty national parks. Together they tell the story of the Dutch countryside. The parks are full details of the Dutch nature to be found: dunes, woods, moors, fens, tidal water, stream valleys and lakes. And the residents vary by park: special birds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians, like red deer, badgers, beavers, otters and seals their place in the parks.
17 specific sites in the Netherlands designated as a national park. In addition, there are also two private national parks (NP and NP De Hoge Veluwe Veluwe) and the cross-border park Zoom Kalmthoutse Heath. The nature reserves are each contiguous and cover an area of at least a thousand acres. For the Dutch nature they form a whole: the system of National Parks in the Netherlands. The owners, managers and other stakeholders of the parks are jointly responsible for the protection and development of the quality of nature.
The national parks focus on:
Protection and development of nature and landscape
Outdoor recreation
Education and information
Research
The contest was a real challenge with new experience and opportunity for all international participants. We receive a letter from our Spanish colleagues in which they tell us about their work, first results and emotions during May.
«I have been involved in four editions of Wiki Loves events. After monuments and public art, Wiki Loves Earth was a new challenge with new partners, new audience and new targets to develop on Wikipedia. In summary, I love it and really worth it. I am still amazed by the results.
There are motivated Wikipedians who like to complete with photos almost anything you propose. There is also a large community of Flickr users that do not edit Wikipedia but they are eager to help with their expertise on photography. But it is amazing that after four years of annual photo competitions, 60% of the participants are new users. This is an important outreach goal.
A nice story of an unknown participant sums up the spirit of Wiki Loves Earth. After a month of competition, the last day a new participant registered his or her account and uploaded wonderful pictures. What surprised me most is that he only uploaded photos of sites that had no images after a month of competition. Althougt Val d’Aran, a remote valley in the Pyrenees, has got a good participation, some alpine sites are particularly difficult to get and they are pretty unknown. This last minute participant completed all the sites of Val d’Aran with valuable and well documented pictures. I do not know what was his motivation and he probably should have more photos of other sites already covered. His interest in completing all sites with photos denotes an interest beyond pure competition, more probably an interest in sharing the nice sites of Val d’Aran and showing them to the world. There is some local pride, some eager to collaborate and lots of love for nature.
The jury will have a lot of work to review more than 7,000 photographs submitted by nearly 100 participants. At the international level have been uploaded 59,000 photographs so that Andorra and Catalonia areas is in the third position.
Thankfully the involvement of all participants, some from the special group of Flickr, other veterans of previous contests, but it is remarkable that 60% of new participants have been taken part in it during a month.
The most popular has been the Sierra del Cadi-Moixeró with 12 participants, and the most photographed place is Collserola with 473 photos. The Montseny massif is in second place both in participation and in photographs.
Now we need time to digest all this volume, the Wikipedians to develop information on natural heritage motivated by new pictures, and the jury to decide who are the winners. Good luck to all participants and thank who have contributed to the spread of natural heritage».
Algeria is the only country that started the contest on June 1 (as you remember Germany, Ghana, India and The Netherlands have just continued it from May to June).
Algeria is a land of contrasts. Look as beautiful are its mountains, lakes, desert and green oases!
But some participants continue to accept photos for contest during June (from 1 to 30). There are Algeria, Germany, Ghana, India and The Netherlands.
Serbia and Syria have their sites opened from June 15 to July 15.
We have the first statistics from chapters that took part during May.
So in the first place is Macedonia which snatched victory in the final minutes from Ukraine. So Macedonian contest collected 12.695 photos against to Ukraine with 12.089 pictures.
Third place was taken by Andorra& Spain. Their result is 7.515 photos.
But this is only preliminary results. Finally, we are able to see the other winners. Pay your attention that the object on the photo is the most important.