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.
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So far nearly 30 000 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 (6572 photos), Macedonia (4730 photos) and Andorra&Spain (4404 photos).