Seven Arab Sites Among Initial Nominees for Seven Natural Wonders

After all the extravaganza and hype associated with the New 7 Wonders competition that reached its maximum on July 7th with the announcement of the new 7 wonders list, including the great city of Petra in Jordan, the same organization is opening up the initial nominations for round two of the competition focusing on natural wonders.

The initial phase of nominations is now open online.

Nominations must be for a clearly defined natural site or natural monument that was NOT created or significantly altered by humans. Physical or natural phenomena like the northern lights, the gulf stream or shooting stars are not eligible.

The nominees MUST be one of the following:

natural site
natural monument
landscape

This is an overview of the categories that help to sort and evaluate your proposals:

Animal Reserve
Canyon, Fjord
Cave, Grotto
Coastline, Cliff
Forest, Wood
Geological site
Glacier
Mountain, Volcano, Rocks
Nature Conservancy Park
Oasis , Deserts
Prehistoric natural site
Underwater World, Reef
Water, Sea, Lake, River
Waterfall
other

It seems that the organization has placed some nominees on the website with very little presence from the Arab World. In Asia two sites are nominated: the Dead Sea (Jordan, Palestine, Israel) and the Socotra Island in Yemen.

In Africa there is more Arab presence:

El Kala National Park;National Park;Algeria

Ichkeul;Lake;Tunesia

Mount Sinai;Mountain;Egypt

Sahara;Desert;Alegeria

The White Nile;River;Egypt

The next step will be to announce an official supporting committee for each nominee and then start voting.

I think Jordan can work to add Wadi Rum as a potential nominee as it has a lot of glorious and unique features. The chances of the Dead Sea will be degraded due to political tensions in the region. To the best of my knowledge the nomination process is still open.