Dear Wikimedians,

This year, the 9th edition of Wiki Loves Earth — the biggest international photo contest devoted to nature heritage — was held. The competition aims at raising public awareness about protected areas and creating the biggest database of free photos of them. We are happy to announce the *international winners of WLE 2021*!

The contest lasted between May 1 — August 31, with different countries having different submission windows and united 34 countries and territories. Among those, United Arab Emirates and Wales joined the competition for the first time. We received over 64,000 freely licensed photos of natural monuments from over 4300 people.

This year, the international winners represent *two categories* — landscapes (including individual trees if it’s a nature monument) and macro/close-up (animals, plants, fungi). The international jury team http://wikilovesearth.org/jury/ had a challenging task — to select up to 20 international winners out of 390 winning photos https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2021/Winners on the local level. Meet the winners by category in our blog post https://wikilovesearth.org/meet-wiki-loves-earth-2021-international-winners/ . The jury report can be found at the links: high resolution https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wle-jury-report-2021-hires.pdf, low resolution https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wle-jury-report-2021-lores.pdf. Thanks a lot to each participant that uploaded photos, local organizers that worked hard to make their contests happen, as well as local and international jury members for their contribution and dedication to the competition and evaluation. Stay tuned and follow our news, further — more!

Best regards, Anastasiia Petrova Project Manager for International Wiki Loves Earth 2021