This project is funded by a Project Grant

Report under review

This Project Grant report has been submitted by the grantee, and is currently being reviewed by WMF staff. If you would like to add comments, responses, or questions about this grant report, you can create a discussion page at this redlink.

To read the approved grant submission for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Atudu/Wiki Loves Butterfly - Phase V.

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Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the grantee's project.

Part 1: The Project

Summary

Project Goals

1. Execute vast documentation programs in the remote areas of North East India as well as in the still unexplored areas of West Bengal.

In the fifth phase of the Wiki Loves Butterfly (WLB phase V), the team has planned its field documentation programs in the remote areas of north-east India in the states of Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland as well as in the still unexplored areas of West Bengal covering some of their wildlife sanctuaries, reserve forests, popular butterfly hotspots and other prospective areas in some local villages, grasslands, bushlands etc. The team completed 42 field trips in West Bengal, 11 in Assam, 3 in Arunachal Pradesh, 2 in Sikkim and 2 in Nagaland in this phase.

2. Document different butterfly species and subspecies in the said area, their life cycle, behavioral activities, nectaring plants, larva host plants etc.

During this entire phase, our documentation process had been as thorough and detailed as possible as it was during our previous phases. We succeeded in documenting different butterfly taxons, with their life cycles, larval host plants, nectar plants and behavioral aspects like busking, nectaring, mud puddling etc. as opportunity occurred. More than one team simultaneously executed our field documentation trips in different areas to optimally utilize the prospective butterfly months and succeeded in generation and collection of significant amounts of data and photographs of the butterfly taxons found in those places.

3. Create new articles and enrich the existing articles regarding butterfly species on both Bengali and English Wikipedia.

150 new Wikipedia articles, related to butterflies, have been created and several more existing articles have been enriched with content and reference.

4. Upload more quality and valued images on Wikimedia Commons with maximum possible reuse of all uploads on different Wikimedia sites.

During this phase, 4492 images were uploaded, among which 338 images are quality images, 51 images are valued images and 15 are featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons. 26.37% of our total 6363 photographs are being used on different wikimedia sites.

5. Enrich structured data on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and add relevant contents on Wikispecies.

We have enriched relevant Wikidata items with images of different stages of butterflies which we have photographed.

6. Plan and execute extensive outreach through recruitment of new volunteer contributors, collaboration of special interest groups, and participation and/or co-organization of regional and national level butterfly meets.

In our extensive outreach program inspiring, motivating and creating new wiki contributors, we succeeded in recruiting 13 new volunteer contributors from different provinces of Eastern and North Eastern provinces who have uploaded quality pictures and data in wikimedia sites .

Project Impact

Important: The Wikimedia Foundation is no longer collecting Global Metrics for Project Grants. We are currently updating our pages to remove legacy references, but please ignore any that you encounter until we finish.

Targets

In the first column of the table below, please copy and paste the measures you selected to help you evaluate your project's success (see the Project Impact section of your proposal). Please use one row for each measure. If you set a numeric target for the measure, please include the number.
In the second column, describe your project's actual results. If you set a numeric target for the measure, please report numerically in this column. Otherwise, write a brief sentence summarizing your output or outcome for this measure.
In the third column, you have the option to provide further explanation as needed. You may also add additional explanation below this table.

Planned measure of success (include numeric target, if applicable)	Actual result	Explanation
200 total participants	462 total participants	outreach program in Government Secondary School Pasingdang, Sikkim (Participant no 60) 5th edition of Namdapha Butterfly Meet 2022, Arunachal Pradesh (Participant no 300) 7th edition of Northeast Butterfly meet 2022, Raimona National Park, Assam (Participant no 71) WLB photo-walk 2022 at Chintamani Kar Bird Sanctuary, West Bengal (Participant no 11) WLB photo-walk 2022 at Bankimnagar Forest, West Bengal (Participant no 20)
100 newly registered contributors
15 new active contributors	13 new active contributors
4000 files uploaded on Wikimedia Commons	4492 files uploaded on Wikimedia Commons	dedicated teamwork, large number of field documentation programme
150 Wikipedia articles created and edited	150 Wikipedia articles created and edited	proper task allocation, member’s mutual responsibility sharing and study of more literature
1500 content pages created and edited on other Wikimedia sites	558 wikidata item created
(10-15)% reused images across different Wikimedia projects	26.37% reused images across different Wikimedia project
20 field works in West Bengal + 12 field works in north-east India	45 field works in West Bengal + 22 field works in north-east India
2 photo-walks in West Bengal	2 photo-walks in West Bengal
2 butterfly meets in north-east India	2
2 Wikimedia meetups in West Bengal	1
1 edit-a-thon in West Bengal	2

Story

Looking back over your whole project, what did you achieve? Tell us the story of your achievements, your results, your outcomes. Focus on inspiring moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes or anything that highlights the outcomes of your project. Imagine that you are sharing with a friend about the achievements that matter most to you in your project.

This should not be a list of what you did. You will be asked to provide that later in the Methods and Activities section.
Consider your original goals as you write your project's story, but don't let them limit you. Your project may have important outcomes you weren't expecting. Please focus on the impact that you believe matters most.

Students of Government Secondary School Pasingdang, Sikkim searching and photographing butterflies

A butterfly walk at Bankimnagar forest, West Bengal to engage newcomers

The Wiki Loves Butterfly (WLB) is a Wikimedia project running for the last six years by a growing team of passionate volunteers, aiming to digitally document live butterflies in the wilds of eastern and north-eastern states of India and to produce open knowledge contents and data related to the subject.

After successfully completing four consecutive years under the sponsorship of the Rapid Grants program of the Wikimedia Foundation, it was time for the WLB team to think bigger and scale up the project in its fifth phase and apply for the Project Grants. But when the new phase started in June, 2021, we remained a bit anxious because of the existing fear of COVID-19 pandemic leading to subsequent restrictions of inter-state movement and closure of the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries where we were planning to visit, which created the possibility to postpone or cancel this phase. From our last phases, we have learnt a lot on how to adapt to untoward challenges and overcome hurdles which provided us with necessary confidence to initiate this phase. We held frequent meetings among team members and chalked out necessary strategies.

During the first few months of this phase, we decided to shift our focus in carrying out field documentation in local hotspots where our team members reside restricting movements within that locality. This change in strategy allowed us to utilize the time prospective to find and document butterflies and simultaneously ensure safety of our team members without breaking the rules. Within a few months, we planned to send local teams to hotspots within West Bengal wherever entry restrictions and permission of movement slackened a bit. At the same time, we frequently communicated with the concerned forest departments of different states to receive current updates. Our team resolved to one very significant point that if the pandemic situation took adverse turn, we would continue to carry out the project in our backyards or in the local hotspots. Such strategic alteration and innovative measures worked beyond our expectations to deliver required outputs even in the midst of all the challenges we faced which were beyond our control. In the meantime, we ensured full vaccination against COVID-19 for all our team members and reimbursed for their expenses. Weather can also be a determining factor for a successful field trip. Overcast sky, prolonged rain, strong wind etc. can ruin field days in different ways. Unpredictable weather and long rainy seasons leading to floods in the north eastern states had always been our problem. Detailed analysis of the weather forecast of the region and frequent communication with local contacts of the regions before the trips to get latest weather updates of the region was our way to overcome the hurdle.

In almost all the hotspot zones of West Bengal and north eastern states which we covered, we built and kept close rapport and frequent communication with forest officials, guides, local butterfly and birding enthusiasts, which helped greatly in planning our field work schedule and selecting the prospective time to document in a particular zone. This also helped us in sending more than one team simultaneously to different regions to optimally utilize the time.

A gynandromorph of Athyma inara found for the first time in India

We achieved a major breakthrough when we sent a team to Buxa Tiger Reserve in November, 2022. Two forest guides informed our team members that they had suddenly observed a strange looking butterfly a few days ago in a part of the forest after which a comb search was conducted for the next three days under the guidance of those guides in a specific part of the huge forest as per their knowledge and intuition. Finally at noon on the third day, our team members were able to locate a gynandromorph butterfly and photographed and collected data. Gynandromorphism is a very rare occurrence of developing both male and female characteristics in a single individual. Later this find was published in a peer-reviewed journal and was honored as the first record of live gynandromorph species of ‘’Athyma inara’’ in India. This was the highest moment of achievement and inspiration for the entire team in this 5th phase of the project.

In this phase, we have conducted 67 field documentations, 2 photo-walks and 2 national level butterfly meets and uploaded 4492 photographs on Wikimedia Commons, out of which 338 are quality images, 51 are valued images and 15 are featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons. But the achievements of WLB is not restricted only by enrichment of open knowledge with images, data and contents or awareness about Wikimedia, but it extends further with our efforts about awareness of butterflies and conservation of nature at large among common people. We have witnessed curious locals and students organically coming forward to search for butterflies with us or interacting and asking questions about butterflies and the unknown world of Wikimedia.

Survey(s)

If you used surveys to evaluate the success of your project, please provide a link(s) in this section, then briefly summarize your survey results in your own words. Include three interesting outputs or outcomes that the survey revealed.

Other

Is there another way you would prefer to communicate the actual results of your project, as you understand them? You can do that here!

States	Districts	No. of field trips	Location
Assam	Bongaigaon district	5	Bongaigaon
			Kakoijana Reserve Forest
			Nighomghola
			Shankarghola Reserve Forest
	Barpeta district	1	Barpeta Road
	Kokrajhar district	4	Ultapani Reserve Forest
	Jorhat district	2	Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary
	Kamrup district	1	Satargaon
			Rani Reserve Forest
			Garbhanga Reserve Forest
	Kamrup Metropolitan district	1	Dipor Bil
Arunachal Pradesh	Changlang district	1	Namdapha National Park
Arunachal Pradesh	Lower Subansiri district	1	Talley Valley Wildlife Sanctuary
Sikkim	North Sikkim district	2	Dzongu Valley
Nagaland	Kohima district	2	Khonoma
			Kigwema
			Viswema
	Dimapur district	1	Dimapur
	Zunheboto district	1	Kivikhu
			Satoi
			Sukhai
			Tizu Valley Community Conserved Areas
West Bengal	Jhargram district	3	Belpahari
			Chilkigarh
			Dhangikusum
			Garrasini hill
			Ghagra riverbed
			Kankrajhore
			Kenda pahar
	Birbhum district	1	Ballabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary
			Lalbandh
			Shantiniketan
			Sonajhuri Forest
	Paschim Bardhaman district	1	Deul Park
			Durgapur
			Durgapur Barrage
			Garh Jungle
	Nadia district	18	Bankimnagar Forest
			Barajaguli
			Bethuadahari Wildlife Sanctuary
			Debogram Reserve Forest
			Hijuli Reserve Forest
			Khisma Reserve Forest
	North 24 Parganas district	1	Bangaon
			Bibhutibhushan Wildlife Sanctuary
			New Town
			Rajarhat
	Purba Bardhaman district	1	Bardhaman city
	Purba Bardhaman district	1	Ramnabagan Wildlife Sanctuary
	Hooghly district	2	Baidyabati
	Hooghly district	2	Shib Chak
	Howrah district	2	Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden
	Howrah district	2	Garchumukh Deer Park
	Alipurduar district	1	Buxa Tiger Reserve
	Alipurduar district	1	Rajabhatkhawa Butterfly Conservatory
	Bankura district	2	Biharinath
			Bishnupur
			Joypur forest
			Kamalpur
			Kadma
			Susunia
			Sutan
	South 24 Parganas district	6	Burul
			Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary
			Kaikhali
			Shyamkhola
	Darjeeling district	1	Kurseong
			Latpanchar
			Lepchajagat
			Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary
			Mirik
			Senchal Wildlife Sanctuary
			Shivkhola
	Paschim Medinipur district	2	Arabari Range Forest
	Paschim Medinipur district	2	Shalboni Forest Range
	Kolkata district	3	Central Park Kolkata
	Kolkata district	3	Rabindra Sarobar
	Kalimpong district	1	Bindu
	Kalimpong district	1	Paren
Total		67

months	uploaded images (monthly)	Quality Image	Valued Image	Featured Image
June, 2021	516	19	8	0
July, 2021	224	3	1	0
August, 2021	326	2	3	0
September, 2021	88	2	3	0
October, 2021	445	21	12	2
November, 2021	126	6	6	4
June, 2022	792	96	6	14
July, 2022	151	9	0	0
August, 2022	398	46	2	0
September, 2022	352	38	4	0
October, 2022	941	30	2	0
November, 2022	133	85	9	1
Total	4492	338	51	15

Pachliopta aristolochiae (Fabricius, 1775) - Common Rose
Teinopalpus imperialis (Hope, 1843) - Kaiser-i-Hind
Charaxes bernardus (Fabricius, 1793) - Tawny Rajah
Aemona amathusia (Hewitson, 1867) - Yellow Dryad

Methods and activities

Please provide a list of the main methods and activities through which you completed your project.

The restriction of movement due to the lockdown resulting from the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic at the very onset of the fifth phase of the project compelled us to adapt and modify our strategy by emphasizing on documentation at the backyards of our houses and nearby localities.

Whenever and wherever those restrictions of movement slackened a bit, we started crossing borders of nearby districts as deemed fit to document the butterflies in different hotspots.

By the way, we took initiatives to get all our team members duly vaccinated and followed the precautionary measures strictly on field.

When pandemic restrictions were abolished, we were on the spur to document vigorously and sent 2-3 teams simultaneously at different hotspots located in different states to utilize prospective butterfly months and to get maximum possible outputs.

The team kept close contact and strong rapport with forest department officials and guides from different national parks, reserve forests and wild life sanctuaries from different states to receive latest updates about the situations.

Tasks were distributed and responsibilities were shared among members for smooth execution of our projects.

Team members were regularly and closely communicated on 1:1 basis, telephone calls, social media channels and physical and online monthly meetings to increase mutual bond and friendship.

We always maintained intimate coordination with the West Bengal Wikimedians User Group and took their valuable suggestions and guidance on different aspects of our project.

Our team members motivated and mentored new butterfly enthusiasts through our outreach program and converted some of them to Wikimedia editors, who subsequently joined the team in field documentation, data collection etc.

We kept close contact with lepidopterists, resource persons, special interest groups and collaborated with notable scientific bodies– which all helped us greatly in our species and subspecies identification process, field planning, supply of scientific literature and so on.

We also conducted small scale edit-a-thons and workshops to help new members orient about the value and workflow of Wikimedia.

We also reached out to a few schools to build awareness among students and locals about the importance of butterflies in ecological balance.

We co-organized national level butterfly meetups partnering with like minded organizations and groups, where our team representatives delivered presentations and lectures about the purpose of Wiki Loves Butterfly project and Wikimedia movement as a whole. The media coverage of those Butterfly meets were published in local newspapers.

Project resources

Please provide links to all public, online documents and other artifacts that you created during the course of this project. Even if you have linked to them elsewhere in this report, this section serves as a centralized archive for everything you created during your project. Examples include: meeting notes, participant lists, photos or graphics uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, template messages sent to participants, wiki pages, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter accounts), datasets, surveys, questionnaires, code repositories... If possible, include a brief summary with each link.

presentation on Digital Conservation through Knowledge Sharing

Diff post:

WLB photo-walk

Edit-a-thon

Wiki Loves Butterfly/Editathon/07.08.2022

Butterfly meet-up

5th edition of Namdapha Butterfly Meet 2022
- YouTube link
7th edition of Northeast Butterfly meet 2022, Raimona National Park
- 7th Northeast Butterfly meet 2022 held at Raimona National Park
- 190 species of butterflies recorded in Assam’s Raimona National Park

Scholarly Articles

Presentations

Digital Conservation through Knowledge Sharing during Wikimania, 2022

Learning

The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you took enough risks in your project to have learned something really interesting! Think about what recommendations you have for others who may follow in your footsteps, and use the below sections to describe what worked and what didn’t.

What worked well

What did you try that was successful and you'd recommend others do? To help spread successful strategies so that they can be of use to others in the movement, rather than writing lots of text here, we'd like you to share your finding in the form of a link to a learning pattern.

Your learning pattern link goes here

We have developed and adopted a few strategies over the years in our previous phases which has helped us successfully plan and execute our projects in all our projects. The key factors include:

Dedicated team members passionate about butterflies and photography.
Balanced teamwork management.
Closed bonding among team members.
Proper task distribution.
Sharing of mutual responsibilities.
Regular monthly team meetings and updates.
Elaborate and extensive planning of field documentation programs.
Broad outreach program to bring new contributors and potential team members.
Regular communication with forest officials and local enthusiasts.
Close contact with resource persons, scientific bodies and special interest groups.
Active use of social media for promotion and communication.

What didn’t work

What did you try that you learned didn't work? What would you think about doing differently in the future? Please list these as short bullet points.

Though we took every possible measure through our previous experiences and learnings in planning our field documentation programs to avoid weather hazards, we faced unexpected spells of rain and cloudy weather which affected field performances.

The prolonged phase of natural calamity in the form of devastating flood and landslide in Tripura and Meghalaya hindered our plans and arrangements of field documentation programs there in this phase. We waited for subsequent months to start operation there, but the hotspots remained totally inaccessible for the phase.

Other recommendations

If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please list them here.

Next steps and opportunities

Are there opportunities for future growth of this project, or new areas you have uncovered in the course of this grant that could be fruitful for more exploration (either by yourself, or others)? What ideas or suggestions do you have for future projects based on the work you’ve completed? Please list these as short bullet points.

We have discussed and decided to extend our field documentations in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
We have also decided to begin field trips in the north east Indian state of Tripura which was struck with environmental calamity in this phase.
We also have plans to publish scholarly articles on butterflies in reviewed scientific journals.
We will also extend awareness programs in other schools.

Part 2: The Grant

Finances

Actual spending

Please copy and paste the completed table from your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed the actual expenditures compared with what was originally planned. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided to explain them.

Expenses for covering field-works for two (2) persons, butterfly meets and photo-walks
#	Category	Item description	Proposed Total cost (INR)	Proposed Total cost (USD)	Actual Total cost (INR)	Actual Total cost (USD)	Explanation
1	Logistics	Flight (Economy class) and train Up and Down fare	150,000	2,049.18	97,734
2		Local Transportation by Car, Bus and Auto	170,000	2,322.40	165,701
3		Permission for entering the Reserve Forest (ILP), Camera charges, Butterfly Meet Participation cost	71,000	969.94	81,673
4		Food and Accommodations	130,000	1,775.95	256,417
	Total		521,000	7,117.47	601,525
Photographic Gears
1	Infrastructure	Camera Body (NIKON D 500)	134,799	1,841.51	118,037.82		Canon EOS 90D
2		Lens (SIGMA 150MM F/2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO MACRO LENS (FOR NIKON))	107,900	1,474.04	100,000.00		Sigma APO MACRO 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM for canon
3		Flash gun (Nikon Speedlight SB-700)	24,400	333.33	17,254.24		Canon 470EX-AI
4		Strap (Universal Heavy Duty Double Sling Strap for Two DSLRs Camera)	899	12.28	8,035.71		Black rapid brand wearable double breath
5		Dry Cabinet (HINISO AD-30C 34 Liters Capacity Digital Display Dry)	7,290	99.59	4,449.15		Andbon AD-30S
6		Memory Card (SanDisk Extreme SDXC, SDXVE 64GB, V30, U3, C10, UHS-I, 90MB/s R, 40MB/s W, for 4K Video)	2,100	28.69	3,771.18		Sandisk 128 GB Extreme Pro SDHC 170 MB and Sandisk 64 GB Extreme Pro SDHC 170 MB
	Total		277,388	3789.44	251,548
Outreach and Promotion
1	Outreach	Offline data-thon (room rent)	4,000	54.64
2		Projector rent	2,000	27.32
3		Token of appreciation for volunteers (sweatshirt)	15,000	204.92	13,900		SWAG (FOR TEAM), Water bottle
4		Design and printing of banners, SWAG materials etc.	5,000	68.31	5,500		Design and printing of banners, post cards etc.
5		Promotional video creation	8,000	109.29
	Total		34,000	464.48	19,400
Project lead and co-ordination
1	Remuneration of Project Lead		360,000	4,918.02	360,000
	Total		360,000	4,918.02	360,000
Others
1	Miscellaneous		82,612	1,128.58	41,959		Hoya Filter UX UV (PHL) 72mm (UV Filter), Manfrotto MKBFRLA 4BK-BH BEFREE ADV AL LEVBLK KIT BH (stand), Eneloop BK-3HCC/4BN Pana PRO (Battery) and Lowepro Runner BP 350 AW II (Backpack)
	Total		82,612	1,128.58	41,959
	Grand Total		1,275,000	17,418	1,274,430

Sl no.	Item description	Total INR	Receipts
1	Train Fare/Flight Fare Up and Down	97734	Y
2	Local Transportation (By Car, Auto, Bus)	165701	Y
3	Permission for Entering the Reserve Forest and Guide Charges/Butterfly Meet	81673	Y
4	Food and Accommodation	256417	Y
5	Miscellaneous	9480	Y
6	Photographic Gears	284025	Y
7	Outreach and Promotion (SWAG Material)	19400	Y
8	Project lead and co-ordination	360000	Y
	Total	1274430	-

Remaining funds

Distribution of funds spent state wise (WLB Phase-V)

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

no

In our proposed budget we mentioned of 1,275,000 INR (17,418 USD) as expected expenditure, after the deduction of bank charges I have received in amount 1,271,696 INR. But due to seasonal increase cost of transportation, accommodation and food and other related charges in the areas covers the budget has exceeded most naturally. Our total expenditure has amounted to 1,274,430 INR. We have no money remaining in the fund.

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadmin wikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

yes

Confirmation of project status

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

yes

Is your project completed?