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LEGAZPI
CITY—THE mayor of this premier Bicol city called on all
Filipinos staying anywhere in the world to rally behind
Mayon Volcano and the two other Philippine entries to
the ongoing worldwide search for the “New Seven Wonders
of Nature.”
Participating in the search is simple and easy as votes
could be cast through SMS or e-mail using the mechanic
posted on the poll’s official web site,
http://www.new7wonders.com, according to Mayor Noel
Rosal.
All the
participants have to do, he said is register their
e-mail addresses, names and country where they are
staying then enumerate their seven choices on a prepared
form posted on the same web site.
Besides
Mayon Volcano, which is considered to have the world’s
most perfect cone, two other Philippine the nature sites
nominated in the search are Tubbataha Reef National
Marine Park off Sulu Sea and the Chocolate Hills in
Bohol.
The
search described Mayon as an active volcano, 15
kilometers northwest of this city. It is classified by
volcanologists as a stratovolcano (composite volcano)
whose symmetric cone was formed through alternate
pyroclastic and lava flows.
It is
the most active volcano in the Philippines, having
erupted about 50 times in the past 400 years, making it
a part of what is called the Pacific Ring of Fire. These
eruptions left thousands of people living near its foot
dead and its latest major eruption was in February 1993,
that caught and burned to death with its super-hot
pyroclastic flows dozens of residents farming on its
lower slopes.
These
eruptions spewed millions of tons of volcanic debris
stored on its slopes and on November 2006, a
super-typhoon triggered massive flash floods carrying a
huge volume of these debris, sweeping into residential
areas and adjacent municipalities which left over a
thousand dead and thousands of families homeless.
Meanwhile, the Chocolate Hills is an unusual geological
formation in Bohol composed of around 1,268 perfectly
cone-shaped hills, all about the same size, spread over
an area of more than 50 sq km.
The
hills are covered in green grass that turns brown during
the dry season, which explains its name.
For its
part, the Tubbataha Reef is an atoll coral reef in the
Sulu Sea.
A marine
sanctuary protected as
Tubbataha
Reef National Marine Park, the reef is composed of two
atolls, North and South Reefs. Each reef has a single
small islet that protrudes from the water. A deep
channel that is eight kilometers wide separates the
atolls.
Over
1,000 species, including many that are endangered, can
be found on the reef. These include manta rays,
lionfish, tortoises, clownfish and sharks.
A total
of 275 nominated sites across the world are competing
for the top slots that would hold the prestigious
recognition of being the “New Seven Wonders of Nature”
and voting will continue until December 31, 2008.
The top
voted nominees would be considered by the panel of
experts for finalist shortlistings. The shortlist of the
selected 21 candidates will be announced on January 2009
and will go forward to the next stage of voting.
Voting
for the New Seven Wonders of Nature as chosen by popular
vote from the 21 finalist candidates will continue
through 2009 and into 2010.
Come
summer 2010, the seven winners will be officially
announced.
As of
Monday morning, Mayon Volcano was on the 96th place;
Chocolate Hills on the 31st place and Tubbataha Reef,
29th place.
The
seven natural wonders which have secured the most votes
include Hang Long Bay and Phong Nha–Ke Bang National
Park, Fansipan Mountain, all of which are in Vietnam,
Cox’s Bazar Beach in Bangladesh, Sundarbans Forest in
Bangladesh, Ganges River in India and Bangladesh, and
Mount Everest in Nepal-China.
“I am
optimistic Mayon Volcano would make it to the finals.
The city government is launching as soon as possible a
massive awareness campaign in the locality and all over
the country as well as reach out to Filipinos abroad for
their votes,” Rosal said.
School
children, college students, professionals and
practically everybody who have the capability to cast a
vote would be tapped into this campaign, he said.
Rosal
said nationals of other countries would also be
encouraged to vote for Mayon Volcano and “each vote will
be considered a lifetime token of charity for the relief
and comfort of the yet to recover victims of disasters
brought about by this natural wonder of
Legazpi City
and Albay province.”
Winning
a slot in the Seven Wonders would boost the local
tourism industry and its benefits in terms of
employment, livelihood and business opportunities,
infrastructure development and enhanced government
services will make the people displaced by those
calamities the primary beneficiaries, Rosal added.
The
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (Unesco) and the nonprofit New Seven
Wonders Foundation, which also undertook the New Seven
Wonders of the World search that ended last year,
organized the new search.
New7Wonders is a global movement, combining mass-media
reach with global interactivity and in-market events. A
traffic-leading web-site and unprecedented media
awareness make New7Wonders a truly unique opportunity,
its organizers said in a statement.
The
New7Wonders campaign is not only the first-ever global
vote, but also the only election in which children could
take part—a unique exercise in worldwide democracy, it
added. |
