Announces – Wiki Loves Earth

Wiki Loves Earth 2020 international winners announced

Unique protected sites, diverse flora and fauna from all over the world — meet 15 international winners of Wiki Loves Earth photo contest!

After seven years of competitions the 8th WLE edition was different: due to the world health situation, it has been focused on online activities, encouraging participants to dig into photo archives and keeping safety. It lasted for one more month, between May 1 — July 31. Despite all challenges, we have got the 3rd biggest number of submissions in WLE history and the 3rd biggest number of countries participating in WLE since the start of the international contest.

This year, 34 countries all over the world organized Wiki Loves Earth photo contest. Among those, 7 countries have joined the competition for the first time: Belarus, Bolivia, Ireland, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, Turkey. As a result, we have received 106 240 submissions from 9095 uploaders.

The international jury team worked hard on selecting 15 international winners out of 340 winning photos on the local level. We are excited about the results, check them out!

1st place: photo by Touhid biplob, CC BY-SA 4.0

The winning picture attracts attention to its colours, movement and details, isn’t it? It depicts chestnut-tailed starling representatives in Satchari National Park, Bangladesh. The author says: “Two of them were ready to fight while the third one was looking at them with surprise”. Great catch!

2nd place: photo by Luca Casale, CC BY-SA 4.0

This photo brings us to the Po river belt in Italy. “Always good to see both a species and how it lives”, – says our international jury member. Now we know how a Common kingfisher is hunting in the waters!

3rd place: photo by Nawas Sharif, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ratargul Swamp Forest is the only swamp forest located in Bangladesh and one of the few freshwater swamp forests in the world. Jury members highlighted impressive sunlight and reflection in this picture which perfectly showed us the atmosphere of this place.

4th place: photo by Senthiaathavan, CC BY-SA 4.0

“Babies always give hope”, – says our jury member about this photo and we can’t agree more. The picture depicts a baby of tufted gray langur nestled under its mother’s care at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka. It is the largest native primate in Sri Lanka based on average sizes.

5th place: photo by Gurazuru, CC BY-SA 4.0

The karst formation known as the Pinnacles is located near the top of Mount Api, Gunung Mulu National Park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Malaysian Borneo known for its dramatic peaks and caves. It is the most studied tropical karst area in the world having 295 km of explored caves that houses millions of bats and swiftlets.

6th place: photo by Ruchapong deemak, CC BY-SA 4.0

The author captured Malayan owl, also called barred eagle-owl, in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. Established in 1962 as Thailand’s first national park, it is the third-largest national park in the country. The photo shows its natural habitat — tropical moist lowland forest.

7th place: photo by Md Mehedi hasan456, CC BY-SA 4.0

That is how the red-tailed Bamboo Pit Viper in attack mode looks! The jury member noticed that it’s a very sensitive moment, the photographer put efforts waiting for the right moment. It depicts Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary in Bangladesh.

8th place: photo by Michael Angelo Luna, CC BY-SA 4.0

The author caught a beautiful moment in Taal Volcano Natural Park, Philippines. He went there 2 days after the volcano eruption to document the situation of the locals who live near: “It shows that a lot of people’s livelihood depends on resources and tourism brought by Taal Volcano and its surrounding lake. No matter how dangerous a volcano is, it has done wonderful things for the Earth like atmospheric cooling and fertilizing lands, therefore it should be protected because a lot of lives depends on it”.

9th place: photo by Сергій Мірошник, CC BY-SA 4.0

The juries highlighted how beautiful colours are in this photo of Sympetrum flaveolum in Pushcha-Vodytsia Park, Kyiv, Ukraine. This picture is already illustrating the Wikipedia article about a species. It’s among WLE goals: creating the biggest database of photos of nature heritage and illustrating articles and lists!

10th place: photo by NadezhdaKhaustova, CC BY-SA 4.0

“Love the fox, curled up, warm and alert at its vantage point. He is the focus of the image. But oh, what a splendid background”, — says our jury. Indeed, this Red fox chose an epic place to rest — near Vilyuchik Volcano, South Kamchatka Nature Park. It is a stratovolcano in the southern part of Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.

11th place: photo by Daniel Msirikale, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ol Doinyo Lengai, “Mountain of God” in the Maasai language, is an active volcano located in the Gregory Rift, south of Lake Natron within the Arusha Region of Tanzania, Africa. It is the only active volcano that erupts natrocarbonatite lava. The photo shows us a stunning view of the volcano and a lake nearby.

12th place: photo by Lucas Rosado Mendonça, CC BY-SA 4.0

Caparao National Park was created in 1961 to protect the Caparaó Mountains, located on the border between Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo states in Brazil. This photo shows us amazing details of a species Aplastodiscus arildae living there.

13th place: photo by Hwbund, CC BY-SA 4.0

Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) with caught fish for feeding the children was captured. The juries noticed a good composition and angle of this picture. Geo-Naturpark Bergstraße-Odenwald, Germany, has many species living in an area of 3,500 km² that lies between the rivers Rhine, Main and Neckar.

14th place: photo by Andhika bayu nugraha, CC BY-SA 4.0

This photo depicts Bromo mountain in Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, Indonesia. Looks mysterious, right? The author says: “When the sunset comes from the corner of Gili Lawa stunning horizon, it’s like the world is blessed all over again”.

15th place: photo by Dipu ME-12, CC BY-SA 4.0

Meet one more Kingfisher in our top! The author perfectly captured the moment at the National Botanical Garden in Bangladesh. The picture gives us detailed information about the bird, its size and colours.

Find out more about the evaluation in the jury report in low and high resolution.

Do you have any questions about Wiki Loves Earth? Maybe you want to organize WLE in your country next year?

Join Wiki Loves Earth 2020!

Seven years of photo contests all around the world, 585k free photos of natural heritage sites, with around 130k being used in the wikiprojects — and we are going make these numbers and impact even bigger starting Wiki Loves Earth 2020!

This global photo contest aims to draw attention to protected nature areas and expand the database of free photos of natural heritage sites! And all participants have a chance to win international and local prizes.

Wiki Loves Earth is organized through local contests coordinated by volunteers. By now, 18 countries joined the participating countries list, and the list is constantly growing! You can check whether your country participates in Wiki Loves Earth 2020 and find more information about it on the Wikimedia Commons page.

Do you want to take part in Wiki Loves Earth 2020?

Please check Rules for your submission and upload them to Wikimedia Commons under a free license that enables their free worldwide use.

Do you want to organize Wiki Loves Earth 2020 in your country?

Check out our detailed guidelines about the process. Feel free to contact us at wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua, and we will support you on every step of your local Wiki Loves Earth 2020.

More news and updates are coming, follow us on social media:

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write to us at wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua.

Winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2019

Photo by Sven Damerow, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Warm rays of sunlight that pour through clouds on a snowy mountain. Kayak passing by an enormously still glacier. Two owls staring at you carefully and suspiciously.

These are just a few of the breathtaking photographs winners from the international Wiki Loves Earth competition, whose results were announced today.

The overall winner, seen above, shows a banded demoiselle hovering near a dandelion’s seedhead at Gülper See lake in Brandenburg, Germany. The selection committee praised it for its composition, sharpness, and colors; it “would look great in a book about insects,” one member said, while another called out the extraordinary detail visible on the damselfly’s wings.

Organized since 2013, this year’s rendition of Wiki Loves Earth inspired over 95,000 photo uploads from thirty-seven countries, including at least one from every continent in the world (except Antarctica). All of the entries were judged by juries organized on the national level. The winners from these were forwarded to an international jury of experts, which selected the images that you see above and below.

The contest’s second- through sixteenth-place images follow.

Second place. Photo by Aboubakrhadnine, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A group of people walking through Hoggar National Park, Assekrem, Tamanrasset, Algeria. The members of the contest’s international journey called out this photo’s “magnificent color,” adding that capturing “the line of people versus the line of rock” was “very powerful.” This location was also featured in the fourth-place winners in Wiki Loves Earth 2018.

Third place. Photo by Mykhailo Remeniuk, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A hillside full of flowers in Ukraine’s Carpathian National Park. One jury member stated that this was a “classical” image, while another pointed out that the positioning of the flowers leads a viewer’s eyes straight into the mountains behind.

Fourth place. Photo by Dmytro Balkhovitin, CC BY-SA 4.0.

According to Wikipedia, the mountain Ai-Petri is “is one of the windiest places in Crimea.” On this day, though, the wind could not blow away a swath of low-lying clouds, which gave photographer Dmytro Balkhovitin the perfect opportunity to capture this dawn-lit image. The jury was effusive in their praise for this image, with one calling it “magical,” and another marveling at the difficulty involved in getting to this particular location.

Fifth place. Photo by Andreas Loukakis, CC BY-SA 4.0.

This is the formidable exit from Ha Gorge, a fissure that reaches a depth of about a thousand meters, or over three thousand feet, making it one of the largest in the world. It’s located on Crete, an island off the south coast of Greece.

Sixth place. Photo by Glenn Palacio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Pulangi River is the fifth-largest river in the Philippines (and drains into the second largest). Here, though, you can barely see its size in this dimly lit underground cavern, named “Blue Water Cave” for reasons that this photo makes crystal clear.

Seventh place. Photo by Abdul Momin (Abdulmominbd), CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Ratargul Swamp Forest is the only flooded forest in Bangladesh, and these boats are likely used to bring tourists in to view it.

Eighth place. Photo by Pablo A. Cumillaf, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Grey Glacier is located in southern Chile. In 1996, it could boast of being about 270 square kilometers in size (approximately 100 miles), but it has shrunk in the years since then, including one major split in 2017. One jury member praised how this photographer utilized the large “empty spaces.”

Ninth place. Photo by Volodya Voronin (VolodyaVoronin), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Looking like something out of Star Wars, this foggy morning at Ķemeri National Park in Latvia helps showcase the area’s bogs and forests, as well as the man-made infrastructure that allows tourists to access it. One jury member commented that this photograph featured “a lovely mix of misty subdued colours with natural and man-made objects—making this a thought-provoking piece of art and not just a picture.”

Tenth place. Photo by Andrey Belavin (Ted.ns), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Two features dominate this drone-captured photo of Russia’s Teberda Nature Reserve: a furious river in the upper third, and the road’s switchbacks in the bottom two-thirds. One teasing comment from the jury suggested that this image could have benefited from a passing car—”perhaps a red Ferrari or a cattle truck on the first curve?”, they asked with an accompanying smile.

Eleventh place. Photo by Vladimir Voychuk, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Ostensibly, the subject of this photo is the gnarled old juniper tree located in the Zakaznik Novyi Svit nature reserve in Crimea. What brings this photo over the top, however, was the inclusion of the Milky Way in the background, complete with a shooting star or satellite in the upper central portion.

Twelfth place. Photo by Janepop Atirattanachai (BerryJ), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Doi Inthanon National Park is named for Thailand’s largest mountain, and the scene captured here shows water flowing down that mountain. This is not this photographer’s first winning photos in a contest like this; Atirattanachai previously won first and ninth place in the 2017 Wiki Loves Monuments photo competition. This time around, the jury commended Atirattanachai for this “well thought out and executed piece of art.”

Thirteenth place. Photo by Volodymyr Burdiak (Byrdyak), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Surprise! Two long-eared owls are staring at the photographer who may have just disturbed them but managed to snap this spontaneous capture nonetheless. “Slightly comical,” said one jury member.

Fourteenth place. Photo by Senthi Aathavan Senthilverl, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The toque macaque baby seen here is very aware of the photograph and their camera. However, according to the photographer, this adorable scene has a dark side. “Nature always belongs to those who nurture, care and protect it,” Senthilverl said. “But the humans have forcefully claimed it theirs and are on a path of destruction: destroying jungles, waterways and evicting the rightful owners, the wild animals. The Toque macaque (Macaca sinica) loves to traverse on trees and to be as one with the nature. But this click depicts their current plight. It was heartbreaking to see the mother with her child foraging on the hard ground at Katagamuwa Sanctuary – Sri Lanka.”

Fifteenth-sixteenth place. Photo by JP Vets, CC BY-SA 4.0.

This solitary straw bale was captured in Val d’Orcia, Tuscany, Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which has been the frequent subject of art ranging from Renaissance paintings to the film Gladiator. The jury praised the image for its “great juxtaposition of textures, colours and hues”.

Fifteenth-sixteenth place. Photo by 陳李銜 (Wargash107), CC BY-SA 4.0.

These stalactite caves in Taiwan’s Shoushan National Park are beautifully backlit by the sun peeking in through the opening at the top. One jury member wrote that they particularly enjoyed that the sunlight fell upon the young plant growing in the center of the image.

If you want to find out more about the jury’s evaluation and commentary, please see this year’s jury report in low and high resolution.

This post uses text from the WMF blog; the original text is attributed under a a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license..

Join Wiki Loves Earth 2019!

On May 1, Wiki Loves Earth starts its sixth year of crowdsourcing photos of natural monuments and provides a chance to win local and international prizes. It has grown to become a truly global and large-scale photo contest, helping attract half a million free photos of natural monuments and protected areas from more than 50 countries.

Wiki Loves Earth is a photo competition which calls for participants to picture nature protected areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons. Photos are uploaded under a free license that enables their free worldwide use on Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, and any other project. The previous five contests gathered more than 500,000 photos, and we hope that Wiki Loves Earth 2019 will show even better results.

Wiki Loves Earth is organised through numerous national contests coordinated by local volunteers around the globe. By now 23 countries are on the participating countries list, and we expect more local teams to join. Participants of the contest will compete for international prizes; local teams might also offer their awards.

To participate in the contest, sign up on Wikimedia Commons, find an item or place you are familiar with from the competition list, and upload them to Commons.

You can check whether your country participates in Wiki Loves Earth this year and find more information about it on the Wikimedia Commons page. Rules of the contest are also available on Commons.

If you would like to organize a local contest in your country, contact us at wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua.

To stay updated, follow us on social media:

For questions, please contact wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua.

Sixth edition of international photo competition Wiki Loves Earth is open for submissions

In 2013, the pilot version of Wiki Loves Earth was launched in Ukraine, with Wikipedia issuing a call out to the public to contribute their photographs of natural landscape from across the country licence free to their online database. Since then, the photo competition has expanded to over 50 countries and has collected more than 420,000 photographs from over 40,000 participants. And now, for the sixth time, Wiki Loves Earth is seeking photographs from across the world.

The purpose behind the competition is to gather photographs released under a free licence that enables their free use worldwide. The goal of Wikipedia is to make knowledge available to the world for free, and since natural heritage is part of knowledge, Wikipedia want to gather and release to the world free, usable photographs of natural heritage.

This year 27 countries have already announce participating in the international competition. And 18 of them start a contest on May 1 and will run until the May 31st.

Wiki Loves Earth is coordinated by local volunteers. The national juries then submit up to 10 pictures to the international stage of the contest. Last year with 38 participating countries, the international jury had to consider more than 120, 000 candidate pictures!

Anyone can take part in the competition; however, registration on Wikimedia Commons is required. To enter the contest, find an item or place you are familiar with from the competition list, submit a picture you have taken (from past or present), and upload it to Wikimedia Commons beginning May 1 or later, depending on the starting date in the local contest.

The full report of the last year’s international jury, explaining its work, selection process and bringing the results together with comments of the jury, is available here.

We invite everyone to make this year’s contest a great and valuable contribution to free knowledge!

If you would like to join international WLE with your local contest or have any other questions, please, write on wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua.

Photo Contest 2017 is coming soon!

On May 1, 2017, the Wikimedia community starts the fourth international photocontest aiming to picture under a free license as many natural monuments and protected areas as possible and to promote natural heritage sites around the World through Wikimedia projects. The competition is open to everyone!

Last year the contest attracted more than 13,600 participants. The competition was organized in 26 countries in the same time, while the additional contest category ‘Biosphere reserves’ was open to participants from all 120 countries that are members of the UNESCO’s world network of biosphere reserves. The top 15 photos came from Serbia, Bulgaria, Nepal, Estonia, Ukraine, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Germany, and Thailand.

And again Wiki Loves Earth is set to start crowdsourcing gorgeous landscapes in May. Anyone can take part in the competition; however, registration on Wikimedia Commons is required. To enter the contest, find an item or place you are familiar with from the competition list, submit a picture you have taken (past or present), and upload it to Wikimedia Commons beginning May 1 through May 31, 2016.

The full report of the last year’s international jury, explaining its work, selection process and bringing the results together with comments of the jury, is available here.

We invite everyone to make this year’s contest a great and valuable contribution to free knowledge!

If you would like to join international WLE with your local contest or have any other questions, please, write on wle-team@wikimedia.org.ua.

The top fifteen phenomenal winning photos from Wiki Loves Earth

First place: The limestone of Stopića Cave, Serbia. Photo by Cedomir Zarkovic, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The tangy butterscotch glow of a limestone cave in Serbia soaking up the slanting sun. The emerald green of lush German forest and pond covered with lush weeds and trees. The stark white and blue of a Ukraine snowscape 2,028 meters above sea level, where snowy peaks meet cloud and sky.

The colors of nature burst from the 15 finalists of Wiki Loves Earth, the photo contest now in its third year of crowdsourcing gorgeous landscapes from more than 13,600 participants. The top 15 photos this year come from Serbia, Bulgaria, Nepal, Estonia, Ukraine, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Germany, and Thailand.

National judging in 26 regions sorted through 115,000 photos and sent the best to international judges from Ghana, Germany, South Africa, Kosovo, France, India, Estonia, Indonesia, and Bulgaria.

This year, the contest expanded to include a collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known by its acronym UNESCO. Contestants were invited to upload photos in a separate category for UNESCO biosphere reserves in 120 different countries.

You can see more about Wiki Loves Earth on its website, and this year’s jury report on Commons.

Second place: Pobiti Kamani, Bulgaria, the only desert in Eastern Europe. Photo by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Third place: Tangye, Mustang, Nepal. Photo by Patricia Sauer, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fourth place: Ahja River, Estonia. Photo by Külli Kolina, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fifth place: Biały Słoń, the former Polish Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory, now located in Ukraine. Photo by Khoroshkov, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sixth place: Northern Inland Fuerteventura, Spain. Photo by Tamara Kulikova, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Seventh place: Vääna River, Estonia. Photo by Kristoffer Vaikla, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Eight place: Part of the Schladming Tauern. Photo by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Ninth place: Tokivske waterfall in Ukraine. Photo by Ryzhkov Sergey, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tenth place: Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil. Photo by Joao lara mesquita, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Eleventh place: the same location as #5, but taken on a cold winter day. Photo by Taras Dut., CC BY-SA 4.0.

Twelfth place: Wettenberger Ried, a protected forest in Germany. Photo by Andreas Weith, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Thirteenth place: Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park in Thailand. Photo by KOSIN SUKHUM, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fourteenth place: Terra Ronca State Park, Brazil. Photo by Rafael Rodrigues Camargo, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fifteenth place: Tara in Serbia. Photo by Vladimir Mijailović, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Jeff Elder, Digital Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation

Originally published on the Wikimedia blog at https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/25/wiki-loves-earth-2016-winners/.

Continue reading “The top fifteen phenomenal winning photos from 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/>

Wiki Loves Earth will continue in Morocco until June 7 !

Initially planned until May 31, the organizing committee of photography contest Wiki Loves Earth in Morocco, namely Wikimedia Morocco, announced that he decided to extend the duration of the contest for another week, so he closed the June 7. Given the large number of participants continues to grow and multiplying in a processive way uploaded photos.

Continue to add your photos to this link !

Prévue initialement jusqu’au 31 mai, le comité d’organisation du concours de photographie Wiki Loves Earth au Maroc, à savoir Wikimedia Morocco, a annoncé qu’il a décidé exceptionnellement de prolonger la durée du concours pour une autre semaine, ainsi il se clôtura le 7 juin prochain. Vu le grand nombre de participants qui ne cesse d’augmenter multipliant ainsi de manière processive les photos téléversées.

Continuez à ajouter vos photos via ce lien !

مُقرر مبدئيا إلى غاية 31 مايو، أعلنت اللجنة المنظمة للمسابقة التصوير الفوتوغرافي ويكي تهوى الأرض في المغرب، ويكيميديا المغرب، أنها قررت استثنائيا تمديد فترة المسابقة لمدة أسبوع آخر، لتنتهي بذلك في 7 يونيو. نظرا للعدد الكبير من المشاركين الذي يتزايد مع الأيام، و الذي يرفع معه بشكل إضطرادي عدد الصور المشاركة

! واصلوا في إضافة صوركم على هذا الرابط

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 winners announced

Wiki Loves Earth, a competition where participants take photographs of protected natural areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons, was held internationally for the second time in 2015 with 26 countries. The contest is over, and we are now able to present the international winners.

The goal of Wiki Loves Earth is two-fold. First, we aim to photograph as many natural monuments and protected areas as possible and release the imagery under a free license. Second, we contribute to environmental protection by raising public awareness.

The idea of Wiki Loves Earth began in Ukraine in 2013. In 2014, Wiki Loves Earth was joined by 15 other countries from four different continents—Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

During 2015, over 100,000 pictures were submitted by the participants.

Wiki Loves Earth was organised through numerous national contests, coordinated by local volunteers. The national juries then submitted up to 10 pictures to the international stage of the contest. With 26 participating countries, the international jury had to consider a total of 259 candidate pictures. The jury selected and ranked the photos in several stages by means of a dedicated web tool.

The international jury was composed of 9 photographers from different countries, all experienced in nature photography: Dmytro Balkhovitin (Ukraine), Matthew Buck (Great Britain), Dietmar Bartz (Germany), Walaa Abdel Manaem (Egypt), Alex Wang (USA), Katerina Zareva-Simeonova (Bulgaria), Zeynel Cebeci (Turkey), Susanne Plank (Austria) and Yathin Krishnappa (India).

After careful evaluation jury members have selected the following images, in addition to the winning image above.

7. Nature reserve Wolayer See and surrounding area, Carinthia, Austria. By GeKo15 [CC BY-SA 3.0 license], via Wikimedia Commons

15. Lines left after skiing on the snowy slopes of Baba Mountain below the peak Pelister, National park Pelister, Macedonia. By Ptahhotep [CC BY-SA 4.0 license], via Wikimedia Commons

The full report of the international jury, explaining the work of the jury, selection process and presenting the results together with comments of the jury, is available here.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you for everyone who worked on organisation of the contest this year!

WLE International team

All photographs in this post are published by their authors under CC BY-SA. Click the photos for details.