Competition for seven wonders of the natural world runs into trouble

A four-year long competition to name the seven wonders of the natural world has run into controversy after governments accused the organisers of asking for millions of dollars in marketing costs.

The New7Wonders of Nature poll, its organisers claim, has attracted millions of voters choosing the final seven from a shortlist of 28 natural landscapes which include the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazonian rainforest and the Maldives.

Launched in 2007, the project is the brainchild of Bernard Weber, a Canadian-Swiss marketing expert. From 220 countries 440 images of natural wonders were submitted; these were shortlisted by a panel led by Professor Federico Zaragoza, the former head of UNESCO.

However, after initially paying a registration fee of US$199 to enter, each country was then asked to take part in a high-profile global marketing campaign that included a world tour.

In May, the Maldives Government moved to withdraw from the competition after receiving a "surprise" demand for half a million dollars. They were followed in August by the Indonesian Government, representing Komodo Island National Park, who said the organisers wanted US$10 million in licensing fees and US$47 million to host the closing ceremony.

Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer representing the Indonesian Tourism Ministry, said it was still considering legal action against the foundation, stating "we want to give them a lesson that as a foundation that attracts worldwide attention, they need to be fair with participants of the competition." 

However, despite refusing to pay, both countries remained in the competition at the behest of the organisers.

Gordon Oliver, a former Mayor of Cape Town, whose Table Mountain is on the shortlist, told the Cape Times "what authority does this organisation have to determine a natural wonder as a finalist? 

"It's important that our authorities get the credentials of such organisations who set themselves up as the authority to decide the prominence of natural features."

The New7Wonders Foundation denied it charged exorbitant fees to use its optional branding. Its spokesman, Eamonn Fitzgerald, said the allegations were baseless, and quoted an article he wrote in Minivan News, a Maldives newspaper.

Fitzgerald stated "we hope that we can generate a surplus after this campaign, but all the money from votes goes into running the campaign and maintaining a voting platform for a global competition.

"We do not disclose how many votes have been cast. In our last campaign there were 100 million votes and the target for this campaign is one billion votes."

Fitzgerald said there were varying fees for using the foundation's branding, but he would not disclose figures. 

"The figures vary by country. As a rule we do not comment on business and commercial aspects, which is standard practice in the business world."

The environmental campaigner Tony Juniper said the idea was good in theory but charging fees was a bad idea.

Juniper explained "the idea of a global participatory process to engage millions of people in thinking through a list of top seven natural wonders of the world, strikes me as a good idea.

Charging countries fees to promote marketing is not, especially when they are developing countries and this was not part of the original offer put to them.

"If the organisers were serious about the potential value of such an exercise for raising awareness and inspiring people, I think they should have secured funding upfront, not stage what to some has evidently seemed like a financial ambush."

The winners will be announced on Friday 11th November 2011.

The Top 10 candidates (and opinion on their standings)

Great Barrier Reef
The largest coral reef on earth and is supposedly the world's biggest single structure made from living organisms. Composed of some 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands it stretches for 2,600 kilometres is strung out over 344,400 kilometres2 of the Coral Sea.

Already a World Heritage site, it generates one billion dollars a year in tourism revenue. A definite in the top seven.

Amazon
Superlatives overflow when it comes to the Amazon Rainforest. Despite being cut down at an alarming rate, it still covers seven million square kilometres. Growing across nine different countries, it represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests making it the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world. The forest is fed by the Amazon River, the largest river in the world by volume which also has the biggest drainage basin on the planet. Like the Great Barrier Reef a must in the top seven.

Table Mountain
The only natural site on the planet to have a constellation of stars named after - Mensa, meaning 'the table' – Table Mountain is a South African icon. The flat-topped mountain has withstood six million years of erosion and hosts the richest, yet smallest floral kingdom on earth with over 1,470 plant species. It is the most recognized site in Cape Town and is known as the gateway to Africa, owing to its unique flat-topped peaks which reach 1,086 metres above sea level. A definite top ten.

Galapagos Islands
Famed as being the inspiration for Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, the Galapagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator, 965 kilometres west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. They are famed for their vast number of endemic species and are already a World Heritage Site. Tourism is today strictly controlled on the islands having risen from just over 41,000 in 1991 to over 180,000 today. Charles Darwin would turn in his grave if the islands didn't make the top seven.

Grand Canyon
The playground of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, who liked to hunt there, the Grand Canyon was created by the Colorado River over a period of 6 million years. It is 446 kilometres long, ranges in width from 6 to 29 kilometres and attains a depth of more than 1.6 kilometres. During prehistory, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. A top ten contender if for no other reason than if the United States does have a contender, then many Americans will ignore the competition .

Mount Vesuvius
With a temperament like Italy's soon to be former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Mount Vesuvius is a volcano east of Naples. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years but is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. It has erupted many times since and is today regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. Likely to be the only European wonder in the top seven.

Sundarbans
The largest mangrove forest in the world, the Sundarbans meaning 'beautiful forest' has never got the recognition it deserves. A delta at the mouth of the river Ganges, the Sundarbans spread across parts of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. They feature a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of salt-tolerant mangrove forests. The area supports a wide range of fauna, the most famous of which is the Royal Bengal tiger. Should be in the top ten if for no other reason than to put in on the map.

Dead Sea
The lowest point on the surface of the Earth, tourists come from around the world to float in the Dead Sea, a lake lying between the countries of Israel and Jordan. At 418 metre below sea level, it is almost nine times as salty as the ocean which makes it impossible for most life to exist in it. However, it is not completely dead, as some types of bacteria are able to live in the water. A dead cert for the top seven.

Maldives
The Maldives deserve to be in the top seven because they are among some of the most beautiful but low lying islands in the world. With the sea level rise associated with climate change, they could well not be here in a couple of generation's time. The Maldives are composed of 1,192 small islands with stunning coral reefs strung out like pearls across the Indian Ocean, 700 kilometers south-west of Sri Lanka. Two hundred of the islands are inhabited and over 90% of the islands GDP is reliant on tourism.

Yushan
Yushan meaning 'Jade Mountain' is a central mountain range in Chinese Taipei/Taiwan. It is also the name of the highest point of the range at 3,952 metres above sea level and is part of Yushan National Park, known for its diverse wildlife and ecology. The environment around Yushan spans from sub-tropical forests at its base to alpine conditions at its peak. Despite the enmity between Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China, the Chinese have been encouraging their residents to vote for it so expect people power to easily place it in the top seven.

Images: The Great Barrier Reef (top) and Jade Mountain, Taiwan (below).