The objectives of the contest are to:

• Promote and give visibility to the importance of soil organisms;
• Raise awareness on the urgency of protecting soil biodiversity;
• Stimulate engagement and participation of a wider broader audience on social media in relation to soil biodiversity.

• Each participant can submit up to five entries by filling and submitting the registration form.
• Entries should be sent by email to [email protected] by 30 June 2020 or using any file transfer services.
• Entrants must own the copyright and must have taken the photographs/ videos themselves. They may have been taken at any time prior to the contest launch.
• Photographs and videos should fall under one of the categories mentioned above. 
• Participants should not forget to post their photos/videos if they have social media accounts, using the competition hashtags: #SoilBiodiversity,#GSOBI20 and #Biodiversity2020. The FAO corporate social media may share and retweet the winning photos on corporate accounts.

• The FAO-GSP respects photographers and video-makers rights and does not claim copyright over images/videos submitted to this contest. The author retains full copyright in each entry. Whenever the image/video is published, the author will be credited. 
• Participation in the contest grants FAO-GSP permission to use the image/video for the preparation of FAO material and FAO digital channels. 
• FAO-GSP does NOT own copyright and authors are free to use the image/video for other purposes at their choosing. 

• Photographs must be submitted in .jpeg, .png, .psd, .raw or .tiff format. Images should be submitted with the highest quality regarding file size, bit depth and resolution. Both colour and/or black and white images will be accepted. 
• Videos must be submitted in .mp4, .mpg, .wmv, .avi, .or .mov format. They may not exceed twenty seconds. Videos should be submitted with the highest quality regarding file size, bit depth and resolution.
• The material must not violate or infringe tierce’s rights, including but not limited to trademark, privacy, publicity or other intellectual property rights, or that constitutes copyright infringement.
• The submission must not contain dates, texts, brand names, logos and/or trademarks;
• The submission must be in any of the following FAO official languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.

• The winners of each category will be awarded a prize of USD 500. 
• Additional prizes will be given to the 5 shortlisted finalists of each category. They will receive soil related gadgets, an official certificate of recognition and will have their entries printed and exposed in the FAO Atrium during the Global Symposium on Soil Biodiversity, on UN/FAO websites and social media channels, and on a special article featuring the winners of the contest.