September 2016 – Wiki Loves Earth

The first WLE postage stamp depicts a griffon vulture in Bulgaria

This year, “Wikimedians of Bulgaria” User Group participates for the second time with a local edition of the photo contest for environmentally protected territories, “Wiki Loves Earth 2016 Bulgaria“. And one of the ten winners in the national stage of the competition will be printed as an official postage stamp of the Republic of Bulgaria. This is the additional ‘surprise’ award, which the organizing team of the competition in 2016 arranged along with the planned prizes – vouchers for photographic equipment shops or bookshops, that will be provided under a project funded by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Which one of the ten photos would illustrate the postage stamp, was a decision taken by the members of the Committee of Postage Issuance under the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies. And this choice has already been made. It is the 2^nd-ranked photography in Top 10, by Emiliya Toncheva, which depicts a griffon vulture in the Valchi Dol Reserve near the small town of Madzharovo in Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria. Notably, Emiliya was the first volunteer to contribute her photos to the “Wiki Loves Earth 2016 Bulgaria” in the very first day of the contest, June, 1.

Photo credit: Emiliya Toncheva. Derivative work: Vassia Atanassova. License: CC-BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Committee approved the young illustrator Dilyana Elshishka for designer of the postage stamp, and determined the nominal of BGN 2 (approx. EUR 1), which is the price for sending a postcard from Bulgaria to United States, for example. This stamp will be in valid use and circulation for the next three years. The attempt is to have the stamp ready around October, 1 when the local WLE organizing team is conducting the award ceremony in the National Museum of Natural History in Sofia.

The photograph selected by the Committee of Postage Stamp Issuance is special because it will stay on the very first Wikimedia-related postage stamp in Bulgaria, which also is the first one for the “Wiki Loves Earth” contest globally.

The photo is noteworthy also for touching one of the most important topics of Bulgarian environmental protection: protection of the birds of prey. In Bulgaria, all the three nesting or feeding vulture species – Griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and Cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) are rare and protected species, and the Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) has been since 2007 in a re-introduction program, because of being extinct from the territory of Bulgaria. And while the griffon vulture’s population can nowadays be considered stabilized, the Egyptian vulture continues to be the most rapidly declining among all birds of prey in Europe, with more than 80% decreased population in the Balkans for the last 30 years. Poisons intended to kill agricultural pests are the main reason for the extinction of vultures, whose ecologic role is the one of the natural sanitarians of wildlife.

Author and translator: Vassia Atanassova

Editors: Anelia Bobeva, Nikola Kalchev, Stanislav Yordanov

From <https://blog.wikimedia.bg/2016/07/31/wle-postage-stamp/>

The international round has begun

A record number of over 110.000 pictures, taken by over 13.000 uploaders in 26 participating countries and in biosphere reserves of our partner UNESCO were uploaded during this year’s national round of Wiki Loves Earth! Each of the participating communities chose their best ten pictures which represent them in the international round of the competition. Now the nine-member jury has the hard task to choose the best pictures worldwide.

The jury consist of nine members, who live all around the globe – Dietmar Bartz, Katya Zareva-Simeonova, Besnik Hamiti, Chris Woodrich, Doris Anson-Yevu, Isla Haddow-Flood, Jeevan Jose, Janno Loide, and Qunli Han. They will choose the best pictures, which represent an identified natural monument, natural park, protected area, etc., including pictures of animals taken there. All of the pictures, uploaded during Wiki Loves Earth were published under a free licence.

Most pictures were uploaded in India – 31.317, followed by Germany with 18.161 and Ukraine with 11.475. The highest number of uploaders was found in India with 6.318, followed by Germany with 1.108 and Pakistan with 1.098. For India this year was the second time it participated and its results have been impressive. Among the newcomers, Australia had the best results with 3.509 pictures uploaded by 595 people. The other states which participated for the first time this year were Greece, Albania, Moldova, and Kosovo.

Wiki Loves Earth 2016 completed successfully in Moldova

This year Moldova had the Wiki Loves Earth organized for the first time. During a span of one month, amateur and professional photographers from Moldova had the chance to upload their photos of natural heritage monuments of the country, in the same time contributing to the scarce free media collection of Moldovan nature online.

During a month of contest, the organizers received 600 images depicting 70 natural monuments and protected areas. These are small numbers on a global scale, but decent numbers for Moldova: prior to the contest, only 7 natural monuments had illustrations on Wikimedia Commons. The uploaded files were being added to the corresponding articles immediately, making Moldova the best participating country in terms of media usage (23% of files are used in articles).

The promotion efforts gathered a small amount of actual uploaders. As much as 17 people had at least one valid upload. The jury, consisting of two local professional photographers and one Wikipedian, identified the ten best ten works and announced them at the end of July.

The winners and participants were invited to attend the awarding ceremony on on July 24 at the Hasdeu municipal library of Chișinău. During the meetup, attendants had the opportunity to see a mini-exposition of winning photographies, chat with some of the participants, and also ask questions about Wikipedia, specifically Wikipedia activities connected to Wikipedia in Moldova. There were voices expressing interest for an eventual possible Wiki Loves Monuments in the country.