This year, for the second time, Wales is taking part in the international photography competition ‘Wiki Loves Earth’ organised by the Wikimedia movement. Founded 9 years ago as a focus for nature heritage, the competition aims to raise awareness of protected sites. The Welsh campaign is also organised by Wikimedia UK, the National Library of Wales and WiciMon.

Robin Owain who leads the Wikimedia UK projects across Wales said “This year, our key supporters include the Welsh Government, the Ramblers Association and all three National Parks! We are calling on people across Wales to share their photographs of nature: flora, fauna and fungi!”

This is one of the largest photography competitions in the world focusing on National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and all protected areas. Robin explained “The biodiversity and geology of Wales is unique, and this competition allows Welsh photographers to share our protected areas on a world stage. 

Other organisations who will be supporting this exciting competition include Natural Resources Wales, all three National Parks: Eryri (Snowdonia), Pembrokeshire and the Brecon Beacons, Ramblers (Cymru), and both Edward Llwyd and Llên Natur  nature societies.

Examples of past winners can be seen at http://wikilovesearth.org and last year’s Welsh winners can be found here.

Any photographs you have taken in the past can be uploaded during June, with prizes at both country and national level to the winners. Robin added “The competition is open to everyone. We play rugby and football on the world stage, therefore we ask our friends, volunteers and staff to take photographs on that international stage, and at the same time exhibit their photographs of our diverse countryside.”

Read more about Wiki Loves Earth 2022 in Wales here on Wikimedia Commons.

More on Wiki Loves Earth can be found here.

Further information & images press@wikimedia.org.uk

About Wikimedia UK here

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This blog is also available in French, Spanish and Russian on the Wikimedia Foundation blog.

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Yesterday was World Environment Day, the United Nations’ designated day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment.

Many of us know the world faces unprecedented pressure from human activities. The United Nations Environment Programme Global Environment Outlook reports:

The state of global biodiversity is continuing to decline, with substantial and ongoing losses of populations, species and habitats. For instance, vertebrate populations have declined on average by 30 per cent since 1970, and up to two-thirds of species in some taxa are now threatened with extinction.

Education is key to reversing this decline, to find sustainable solutions to the problems we all face and to learn to live sustainably with the rest of the natural world.

Sustainable environmental action hinges on the education of all citizens, from the earliest age, in sustainable development…..No single country, however powerful, can resolve the challenges of our common environment. (Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO)

UNESCO created the Man and the Biosphere Programme “to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments”.  Biosphere Reserves are areas of terrestrial and coastal/marine ecosystems or a combination thereof, which are internationally recognized within the framework of UNESCO’s Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB). Each Biosphere Reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use. Today there are 669 biosphere reserves in 120 countries belonging to a World Network of Biosphere Reserves, all offering us opportunities to explore how to live sustainably.

Wikipedia is where 500 million of us go to understand complex subjects like climate change, biodiversity and sustainability, and give us information about the world around us. It can also foster our appreciation, wonder and empathy with the rest of the natural world through photographs,.

Everyone can contribute to Wikipedia, it gives us the opportunity to share what we know and what we see, in 2015 one trillion photos were created, more than all previous years combined. More people have phones with cameras than ever before and mobile internet is becoming a major education tool for the developing and developed countries.

UNESCO and Wiki Loves Earth have partnered to create Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves, a competition to create photographs free for everyone to use and to enrich Wikipedia. 10 winning images will be shared on the UNESCO website and social media and will be entered into the Wiki Loves Earth international competition. Wiki Loves Earth competitions around the world have created over 180,000 images of protected natural sites.

If you don’t have access to a Biosphere Reserve you can still be involved by promoting the project, adding the photographs to Wikipedia and using them to teach people about the environment.

To help more people to learn about biosphere reserves, UNESCO have made the official descriptions available under a Creative Commons license, which Wikipedia volunteers will use to create missing articles.

UNESCO’s mandate is to build peace in the minds of men and women. Biosphere Reserves are the places where we discover ways to live in harmony with the environment. Wikipedia is where we inspire and teach each other how.

Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves will run from today until 30 June.

Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves is created in collaboration by the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme, Wikimedia volunteers (special thanks to Navino Evans, Mykola Kozlenko and Romaine), John Cummings (Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO), and Wikimedia Ukraine.

John Cummings, Wikimedian-in-Residence at UNESCO

The views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikipedia; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section below.

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This post was written by John Cummings (Wikimedia UK volunteer) and Emily Humble (Zoological Society of London)

The Wonder Women of Natural History Wikipedia editathon was held in the Mappin Pavilion at the Zoological Society of London on 18 January. This one-day event was dedicated to improving the Wikipedia pages of some of the most remarkable women who have helped shape our understanding of natural history. There has been a big push to raise the profile of women in all fields of science since last year’s Ada Lovelace Day and many editathons have been held across the country to facilitate this.

Wikipedia is the most used reference work in the world, receiving 21 billion page views per month. It is therefore vital there is better coverage of historical and current women scientists to help to inspire the next generation of women scientists. Only 13% of STEM jobs in the UK are held by women. Last year the UK Government made £400 million available to encourage more women to study these subjects.

Like in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields, Wikipedia sees quite similar gender divides. The 2011 Wikipedia editor’s survey shows that less than one in ten Wikipedia editors are women. Many people have spoken about the importance of the gender balance of editors on Wikipedia including Mary Gardiner at Wikimania 2012. Women were particularly encouraged to attend this event to tackle this divide and in fact, all new editors attending were women.

During the day we were lucky enough to take a trip to the ZSL library where senior librarian Ann Sylph had prepared a fascinating collection of books, illustrations and letters. Some of our favourites included a book on Bivalves by Martin Lister from 1696 where all of the illustrations were by his daughters, a letter from Mary Anning to William Buckland and the Minutes of the ZSL Council from 1827, noting Lady Raffles’ admission of women as Fellows to the Society.

Liz Smith from the Darwin Correspondence Project gave us an explanation of their gender project which has revealed a greater than expected number of women involved in scientific study in Darwin’s time. The screening of Darwin’s Women, produced by the Darwin Correspondence Project, then got everyone sufficiently inspired to begin their editing that continued through the day.

Articles that were created or improved during the event included:

• Margaret Clay Ferguson
• Mary Sophie Young
• Margaret Gatty
• Georgina Mace
• Eleanor Anne Ormerod
• Mary Roberts (author)
• Helen Frances James
• Jeanne Villepreux-Power
• Jane Colden
• Martha Maxwell
• Cornelia Clapp

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