Pakistan’s Photograph First Among 259 Entries from 26 Participating Countries!

Pakistani photographer Zaeem Siddiq’s spectacular shot of Lower Kachura Lake, which is a beautiful tourist attraction located at Central Karakoram National Park, Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan has been awarded first position in WLE. It was selected from 259 entries, evaluated by a panel of nine international photographers who are experts in nature photography. (Each country sends ten [or sometimes less] of their best pictures selected by the national jury to enter the international level of the competition).

Pakistan was taking part for the first time, becoming the third South-Asian country after Nepal and India. Our performance was very impressive as we ranked number 4 in submission as more than 11000 photographs were uploaded and ranked number 2 in contribution, with nearly 1500 participants.

What is Wiki Loves Earth?

It is an online photography competition, organized by Wikipedia community members from all over the world. The aim is to photograph natural monuments or protected landscapes and to make those images available under free license as well as to create awareness about environmental protection. It was first held in 2013 in only Ukraine. Then in 2014, 16 countries participated. This year 26 countries took part, in which more than 100,000 images were submitted by nearly 9000 contestants.

The prize-winner gets an all-expense paid trip; to attend the annual conference of Wikimedians known as Wikimania, being held at Esino Lario, Italy in 2016.

For those of you who are interested in taking part next year, visit http://wikilovesearth.org/ for details