Grants:Project/Atudu/Wiki Loves Butterfly - Phase V

This project is funded by a Project Grant

proposal

people

timeline & progress

finances

midpoint report

final report

statusselected

Project Grants

Wiki Loves Butterfly - Phase V

summaryThe overall purpose of Wiki Loves Butterfly project is to increase the amount of free license materials regarding the butterfly taxons available in eastern and north-eastern part of India along with enrichment of related content on different Wikimedia sites.

targetBengali and English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata

amount17,418 USD

grantee• Atudu• Sandipoutsider

advisor• Bodhisattwa

contact• ananyanutritionistgmail.com• sandipdasoutsider1969@gmail.com

this project needs...

volunteer

organization

created on08:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Friendly space expectations

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Area of activity of Wiki Loves Butterfly project from 2016 to 2020. Map generated from SPARQL query on 2 February 2021

Comparison between WLB Part-I, WLB Part-II, WLB-NEI and WLB-NEI-II (Total number of images)

Total No of Species, captured in WLB project till October 2020

Wiki Loves Butterfly (WLB) has been funded for the last 4 consecutive years by the Wikimedia Foundation through the Rapid Grants. The overall purpose of WLB is to increase the amount of free license materials regarding the butterfly taxon available in the eastern and north-eastern parts of India along with enrichment of related content on different Wikimedia sites. For the last 4 years, we have expanded our area of activity to deep forests and distant lands and gained considerable experience and expertise to plan and successfully execute the project. Under this project, we have field-documented live species of butterflies focusing mostly in West Bengal for the first 2 years (WLB West Bengal Part-I & II) and in North East India for the last 2 years (WLB NEI Part-I & II). Unfortunately, like many other offline activities from around the world, our project was also disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and countrywide total lock-down last year.

We have faced a few problems while covering and documenting in the vast, very distant, poorly communicated and hardly accessible regions in the North East Indian mountains and forests. During our butterfly field documentations at the hot-spots in different reserve forests, tiger reserves and national parks in North East India, we had to encounter practical problems like long train journeys, long-distance travels in the badly maintained hilly roadways with very poor and infrequent public transportation services, expensive travels, accommodations and food in remotely accessible places, frequent rain and climatic hazards, which all summed up to one great problem to our field-work documentation activities i.e, the loss of field-work days.

As we worked on low budget under Rapid Grants previously for the last 4 years, we were getting less time in the field because we had to depend on the above-mentioned transportation ways to reach the hot-spots. Some hilly provinces of North East India even don't have any train routes. Air travel and hired cars were too expensive for our previously applied budget. We also had to crunch the number of persons responsible for field-works and limit the number and vastness of the field-documentations.

Usually, we had to spend a minimum of 9-10 days on a home to home journey for a 4-days long field documentation activity, which even might get interrupted sometimes by massive rain and unfavorable weather conditions. The low budget also hindered our plan to send our teams to different field documentation zones simultaneously to take advantage of particular favorable seasons, thus giving us less window, scope and flexibility of work.

In spite of our high enthusiasm, this problem of fewer field-work days due to the various above-mentioned reasons resulted in generation of lesser content than our expectation, which largely affected the volume of contribution to the Wikimedia sites, thus affecting our sole motto to enrich and develop open knowledge on the subject through Wikimedia platforms.

We would also like to mention that, even if we had committed to document butterfly species in North East India only for the last 2 years, we still carried on new and followed-up field-documentations in hot-spots located in different parts of West Bengal to reduce data gaps in the area.

Our project attracted the attention of like-minded organizations, amateur butterfly-enthusiasts, and expert lepidopterists from all over the country, and some of them had actively worked along with us as a team. The growth of our team has given us the opportunity to expand our activities, but we could not exploit the growth to our advantage due to our very limited budget.

Our previous low budget also stopped us from getting at least one high-end camera and super macro lens for our team, which could help us to shoot high-resolution photographs of butterflies. Even with the existing entry-level photography gear of our team members, we have so far succeeded to produce 190 quality images on Wikimedia Commons.

For the reasons mentioned above, we felt that the Rapid Grants coverage, which we had applied for and received in the previous sessions of our WLB projects, is now proving to be insufficient for us to accommodate the expected extent and quality of our project.

What is your solution to this problem?

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

The aforementioned problem of the low budget in our previous Wiki Loves Butterfly phases resulted in fewer field documentation days as explained in the previous sections. Project Grants will allow us to minimize our travel time to reach butterfly hot-spots located in remotest forests in North East India, increase the number, duration, and frequency of field-works, utilize the full capacity of our growing team in the field documentations, and take advantage of favorable seasons most suitable for butterfly photography. These optimal measures will enable us to acquire better field documentation data than now. Better photographic equipments will bring more detailed quality images of butterfly species to Wikimedia Commons. The increase in budget will also parallelly support us to carry out more vivid follow-up documentation in hot-spots of West Bengal too.

Project goals

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

The Phase V of WLB, for which we are applying for the Project Grants, is a thorough continuation of our previous 4 consecutive WLB projects. The proposed goal of this phase are as follows:

1. Execute vast documentation programs in the remote areas of North East India as well as in the still unexplored areas of West Bengal.
2. Document different butterfly species and subspecies in the said area, their life cycle, behavioral activities, nectaring plants, larva host plants etc.
3. Create new articles and enrich the existing articles regarding butterfly species on both Bengali and English Wikipedia.
4. Upload more quality and valued images on Wikimedia Commons with maximum possible reuse of all uploads on different Wikimedia sites.
5. Enrich structured data on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and add relevant contents on Wikispecies.
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.

These shall continue to impact profoundly and bring more visibility to the Wikimedia movement and more interest in the local Wikimedia community. We can only just hope that our future work schedule shall not be affected and disturbed by COVID-19 Pandemic.

• 
  Kallima inachus (Doyere, 1840) – Orange Oakleaf
• 
  Troides helena (Linnaeus, 1758) – Common Birdwing
• 
  Papilio crino (Fabricius,1793) – Common Banded Peacock
• 
  Lamproptera curius (Fabricius, 1787) – White Dragontail
• 
  Delias berinda (Moore, 1872) – Dark Jezebel
• 
  Hebomoia glaucippe (Linnaeus, 1758) – Great Orange-tip
• 
  Papilio protenor (Cramer, 1775) – Spangle
• 
  Euripus nyctelius (Doubleday, 1845) – Courtesan
• 
  Charaxes solon (Fabricius, 1793) – Black Rajah

Project impact

Life cycle of Melanitis leda documented through WLB project.

How will you know if you have met your goals?

For each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:

1. During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
2. Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)

For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (i.e. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents). Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

• Execute vast documentation programs in the remote areas of North East India as well as in the still unexplored areas of West Bengal.
  • Field documentations in North East India and West Bengal
  • Photo-walks in West Bengal

• Document different butterfly species and subspecies in the said area, their life cycle, behavioral activities, nectaring plants, larva host plants etc.
  • More documentation of related flora and fauna.

• Create new articles and enrich the existing articles regarding butterfly species on both Bengali and English Wikipedia.
  • Work on field documentation data and content
  • Train interested persons to enrich Wikipedia contents
  • Organize Wikipedia edit-a-thons

• Upload more quality and valued images on Wikimedia Commons with maximum possible reuse of all uploads on different Wikimedia sites.
  • Use of macro lens and better photographic gears
  • Train new team members to upload on Wikimedia Commons

• Enrich structured data on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and add relevant contents on Wikispecies.
  • Train interested persons to work on butterfly related data.
  • Organize data-thons to enrich entity and lexicographical data on Wikidata related to butterflies.

• 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.
  • Collaboration with butterfly experts
  • Co-organize butterfly meets

Do you have any goals around participation or content?

Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable.

Online activity metrics

Metrics		Expected outcome
Participants	Total	200
Newly registered	Newly registered	100
	New active contributors	15
Number of content pages created or improved, across all Wikimedia projects	Wikimedia Commons	4,000 files
	Wikipedia	150 articles
	Other	1,500
Reused images across different Wikimedia projects		10-15%

Offline activity metrics

Metrics	West Bengal	North East India	Note
Field-works	20	12	These are approximate values, might vary depending on COVID-19 situation.
Photo-walks	2	0
Butterfly meets	0	2
Wikimedia meet-ups	2	0
Edit-a-thons	1	0

Project plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

A good number of volunteers, strong and well-organized teamwork, and proper task allocation are the strengths of WLB project. Our field documentation teams, manned by enthusiastic volunteers, shall operate in the butterfly hot-spots of different zones of North East India and West Bengal simultaneously in favorable seasons.

WLB team member Sandip Das photographing a caterpillar.

In a recent monthly meeting of WLB members, we have allocated the responsibilities among ourselves for handling different segments of the project viz. field documentation, identification of butterfly species, their host plants and nectar plants, content enrichment, promotion through social media and offline events, outreach management etc. For field documentation, our entire team will be divided into 3 - 4 sub-teams, each led by senior and highly experienced team members who shall assist and guide the comparatively junior or new field workers. For other segments, separate teams of 2 - 3 members will be there to carry on specific responsibilities.

We will bring back the field documentation data and enrich the contents on different Wikimedia sites. For this, we will organize offline edit-a-thon(s) on the subject, where we will try to create Wikipedia articles, develop existing ones, add citations and upload photographs on Wikimedia Commons. We also plan to organize a data-thon to enrich entity data and lexicographical data on Wikidata related to the subject.

Previously, WLB team has maintained close connections with resource persons, subject experts and lepidopterists from reputed scientific organizations from all over the country like Bombay Natural History Society, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Nature Mates etc. and has received their valuable suggestions and guidance when needed. In this proposed phase, we hope to effectively continue this tradition of collaboration.

Like previous years, we shall co-organize regional and national level butterfly meets along with reputed bodies and the forest departments of concerned areas. To fulfill our purpose to spread awareness about Wikimedia, pavilions and stalls will be set up, videos will be presented, school and college students will be invited in the field activities, webinars will be arranged, handouts and SWAG materials will be distributed. We will also train interested persons to create articles on Wikipedia, upload photographs on Wikimedia Commons, upload data on Wikidata etc. Environmental conservation issues always reside in our hearts and our activities will help spread awareness about the conservation and diversity of different flora and fauna.

We shall actively communicate with the West Bengal Wikimedians User Group, both online and physically, and take their valuable suggestions regarding our project from time to time.

We also hope to publish scholarly articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals on rare or new findings of butterfly species, which shall be documented from this phase.

As WLB is a continuous project and is running for the last consecutive 4 years, it will be natural for us to communicate with each other after this proposed phase is over and follow-up with the next phase. Our communication within the team members will continue through both online and offline means, which will help us to share knowledge and new ideas about the subject and plan for next activities accordingly. Furthermore, the team members of respective areas shall meet physically in respective local butterfly field documentations. Thus our strong connection and bonding shall lead us nicely to our future plans too.

Month-wise proposed field-work schedule (Liable to changes as per situation)
Month	Area
June, 2021 - July, 2021	Sikkim	Arunachal Pradesh Talle Valley Wildlife Sanctuary
August, 2021 - September, 2021	West Bengal Neora Valley National Park	Butterfly Meet	Nagaland
October, 2021 - November, 2021	Assam Manas National Park	West Bengal Buxa Tiger Reserve	Arunachal Pradesh Pakke Tiger Reserve	West Bengal Senchal Wildlife Sanctuary
December, 2021 - January, 2022	Local field-work (in respective zones by respective residing members)	Photo-walk Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary
February. 2022	Local field-work (in respective zones by respective residing members)	Photo-walk Baidyabati
March, 2022 - April, 2022	Assam Ultapani Reserve Forest Rani Reserve Forest	West Bengal Buxa Tiger Reserve	Arunachal Pradesh Namdapha National Park	Butterfly Meet
May, 2022	Sikkim	Assam Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary

Addition of learning pattern as per grants committee recommendation

We also intend to work on the learning pattern and develop modules and toolkit for other Wikimedians who will be willing to plan similar projects in near future. Through this toolkit, we will try to capture or document all kinds of issues in the process of planning and execution of this project and the steps to be taken to overcome them to manage the situation. It will not only provide enough information to help implement successful strategies for their projects and avoid common pitfalls for other Wikimedians opting for similar projects, but will also help us assess ourselves in a much objective way than before for our follow-up activities. The toolkit will be developed and published throughout the year.

Budget

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

Expenses for covering field-works for two (2) persons, butterfly meets and photo-walks
#	Category	Item description	No. of units	Cost per unit (INR)	Total cost (INR)	Total cost (USD)	Notes
1	Logistics	Flight (Economy class) and train Up and Down fare			150,000	2,049.18	Might vary depending on situation.
2		Local Transportation by Car, Bus and Auto			170,000	2,322.40
3		Permission for entering the Reserve Forest (ILP), Camera charges, Butterfly Meet Participation cost			71,000	969.94
4		Food and Accommodations			130,000	1,775.95
	Total				521,000	7,117.47
Photographic Gears
1	Infrastructure	Camera Body (NIKON D 500)	1		134,799	1,841.51	DX-format Nikon DSLR is best choice. Heavier FX-format body is no real gainer for maximum focal length accruing helpful for butterfly shooting; lighter cropped body gives the real advantage in this respect. The item will be purchased as per availability in market.
2		Lens (SIGMA 150MM F/2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO MACRO LENS (FOR NIKON))	1		107,900	1,474.04	Lighter and easy handling super macro lens between entry level 90/105 mm macro and much heavier and hard handling 180 mm super macro is best choice in our case. Day long carrying in difficult postures of butterflying in dense forest or stony, hilly zones is a matter of real concern. Very heavy lens hinders 7-8 hours continuous field work for days. if not available in market by the time of purchase on receiving the grant money we may have to be shifted to Sigma 180mm F2.8 EX APO DG HSM OS Macro which is much heavier and costing amount is 1,46,900 INR
3		Flash gun (Nikon Speedlight SB-700)	1		24,400	333.33	This Flash Gun provides higher shutter speed for the camera to capture and freeze movement of butterfly.
4		Strap (Universal Heavy Duty Double Sling Strap for Two DSLRs Camera)	1		899	12.28	Useful to support shoulder and give relaxation to wrists and elbows, while using a total 2.5 kg (approximate) set up of camera+lens+flash gun. Double sling strap is advantageous for carrying another short zoom lens camera for documentation of habitat area, entire puddling site and making video clips.
5		Dry Cabinet (HINISO AD-30C 34 Liters Capacity Digital Display Dry)	1		7,290	99.59	An essential device to save camera and lens from extensive moisture in our humid and rain infested country. 34 liter cabinet with sufficient space to keep camera body, lens and flashgun and other related tit bits.
6		Memory Card (SanDisk Extreme SDXC, SDXVE 64GB, V30, U3, C10, UHS-I, 90MB/s R, 40MB/s W, for 4K Video)	2	1,050	2,100	28.69	This brand has all advantages to fit with our chosen camera body. Excellent performing and quick processing card.
	Total				277,388	3789.44
Outreach and Promotion
1	Outreach	Offline data-thon (room rent)			4,000	54.64	Might vary depending on situation.
2		Projector rent	1		2,000	27.32
3		Token of appreciation for volunteers (sweatshirt)	15		15,000	204.92
4		Design and printing of banners, SWAG materials etc.			5,000	68.31
5		Promotional video creation			8,000	109.29
	Total				34,000	464.48
Project lead and co-ordination
1	Remuneration of Project Lead		12 months	30,000	360,000	4,918.02	See responsibility of Project lead.
	Total				360,000	4,918.02
Others
1	Miscellaneous				82,612	1,128.58	Any other unforeseen expenditure
	Total				82,612	1,128.58
	Grand Total				1,275,000	17,418

Community engagement

How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve at various points during your project? Community input and participation helps make projects successful.

Wiki Loves Butterfly team shall use Wikimedia Commons, Indian Wikimedia community, Bengali Wikipedia and West Bengal Wikimedia community mailing lists for communication and project update. We shall also inform and update the community through Wikimedia Commons and Bengali Wikipedia village pumps along with WikiProject India, WikiProject Biology and WikiProject Taxonomy noticeboards on Wikidata. We shall also use our social media pages to grab the attention and curiosity of the general audience beyond Wikimedia communities. We have plans to periodically post blogs on Diff too. We shall also present our project in different online and in-person events such as WikiConferences, Wikimania etc.

Get involved

Participants

Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.

Team

Name	Image	Profile	Quality Images	Valued images
Ananya Mondal		Successfully executed 4 Rapid Grants projects of WLB for last 4 years as Project lead. Wikimedia volunteer for last 5 years. See global contribution. Amateur butterfly photographer.	9	12
Sandip Das		Amateur and assignment photographer from West Bengal with 27 years of experience. Special area of interest in macro photography. Associated with WLB Project for last 4 years.	56	32
Subhendu Khan		Amateur butterfly photographer from West Bengal. Associated with WLB Project for last 4 years. See Researchgate profile.	36	18
Tamaghna Sengupta		Amateur photographer from West Bengal. Project assistant at Rajabhat Khawa Butterfly Conservatory.	10	15
Dipanjali Biswas		Masters in Zoology from Gauhati University, Assam residing in the same state. Special area of interest in butterfly gardening.	5	1
Gayatri Dutta		Masters in Zoology from Gauhati University, Assam residing in the same state. Currently pursuing a project from Aaranyak. 1 scholarly publication on butterfly. See Researchgate profile.		3
Rahul Biswas		Professional photographer and videographer with special interest in butterflies residing in West Bengal.	14
Bias Chakraborty		Masters in Zoology from Vidyasagar University residing in West Bengal. Special area of interest in larva host plant.
Sourabh Biswas		Research Scholar from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata residing in West Bengal. macro photographer. 1 scholarly publication on butterfly. See Researchgate profile.	14	1
Souvick Mukherjee		Masters in Zoology from Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith residing in West Bengal. Special area of interest in wildlife photography and host plant of butterflies.	6
Sandex P Varghese		Naturalist having special interest in host plant of butterflies.
Mahesh Baruah		Professional photographer having special interest in butterflies residing in Assam.	10	3
Sarpita Bose		Research scholar from Indian Institute of Chemical Biology residing in West Bengal. Special area of interest in life cycle of butterflies.	4
Rajib Dey		Amateur photographer with special interest in life cycle and host plants of butterflies, residing in West Bengal. Has few scholarly publications on butterflies. See Researchgate profile.	1	1
Ruksha Limbu		Research scholar from Regional Institute of Management and Technology in entomology, residing in Arunachal Pradesh. special area of interest in life cycle of butterflies.

Advisory Members

• Isaac David Kehimkar: Former Deputy Director of the Bombay Natural History Society and presently Chairman and Director at iNaturewatch Foundation, author of many books and research papers on butterfly and wild flowers. See Researchgate profile.
• Mansoon Joyti Gogoi: Doctoral research fellow, doing research on butterflies of North-East India under the Department of Ecology & Environmental Science, Assam University. See Researchgate profile.
• Tarun Karmakar: Project trainee of National Centre for Biological Sciences, specialist in butterfly taxonomy. See his Researchgate profile.
• Arjan Basu Roy: Curator of different butterfly gardens and parks maintained by the Government of West Bengal, author of different books on butterflies, a founding member of a nature club called Nature Mates. See his Researchgate profile.
• Judhajit Dasgupta: Butterfly expert and first writer of books on butterflies in Bengali language.
• Nawang Gyatso Bhutia: Butterfly expert of Sikkim and president of Butterflies and Moths of Sikkim–Nature Conservation Society (BAMOS-NCS). Read.

Responsibilities of Project Lead

The Project lead will be responsible for the following tasks:

Field Documentation

• Overall planning of the field documentations through analysis of data gap, seasonal availability of butterflies etc.
• Coordination with local resource persons to arrange for necessary logistics.
• Selection of team members for field works and butterfly meets.
• Maintenance and allocation of funds.
• Provide logistical support to the team.
• Coordination with the team and distribution of tasks.
• Coordination with subject advisors for identification of butterfly species and subspecies.

Outreach and Promotion

• Collaboration with other like-minded organizations and subject experts throughout the year.
• Identification and communication with potential new members.
• Planning and organization of photo-walks, meet-ups and edit-a-thons.
• Creation of promotional videos, posters etc.

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc.--> Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

• Wikimedia Commons mailing list - here Done
• Indian Wikimedia community mailing list - here Done
• Bengali Wikipedia mailing list - here Done
• West Bengal Wikimedia community mailing list - here Done
• Wikimedia Commons village pump - here Done
• Bengali Wikipedia village pump - here Done
• WikiProject India noticeboard - here Done
• WikiProject Biology noticeboard - here Done
• WikiProject Taxonomy noticeboard - here Done

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

•  Strong support to the project. I heard the idea about WLB when it was not started but I can see an idea has became a successful project. It achieved its goals with a well organised team. I believe it should run ahead for more content, collaborations and achievements. -- — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nitesh Gill (talk)