Thursday, July 23, 2009
kaitor
KOTA KINABALU: Pulau Sipadan did not make it to the list of 28 finalists for the New7Wonders of Nature online campaign.
A panel of experts had sat for close to two weeks to decide which sites would go to the last round.
But, the island which is on Sabah's east coast remains on the reserve list at www.new7wonders.com and stands a chance, along with more than 40 other sites, to enter the final if any of the 28 nominees are disqualified.
Sipadan had made headlines recently when it won a spot in the campaign's top 77 list after an intense vote which saw 261 nominees competing.
Other islands which did not make the cut are Christmas Island, Cocos Island in Costa Rica and Nicaragua's Ometepe Island.
Voting stopped on July 7 to allow experts, led by former United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) director-general Prof Dr Federico Mayor, to decide which sites would be shortlisted for the final. Voting has started again for the world to select new natural wonders that will be revealed in 2011.
The Sabah Tourism Board went on a campaign to encourage Malaysians and foreign visitors to vote for Sipadan, after it was reported in mid-February that the island had made it as one of 261 nominees.
Sipadan, an oceanic island formed by corals which grew on top of an extinct undersea volcano rising 600m from the seabed, is famous for its coral gardens, barracudas, trevally, turtles and a myriad of other marine life.
In 2002, the International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled that Sipadan and nearby Ligitan belonged to Malaysia, in a 16-1 majority verdict over Indonesia.
source:http://www.nst.com.my
A panel of experts had sat for close to two weeks to decide which sites would go to the last round.
But, the island which is on Sabah's east coast remains on the reserve list at www.new7wonders.com and stands a chance, along with more than 40 other sites, to enter the final if any of the 28 nominees are disqualified.
Sipadan had made headlines recently when it won a spot in the campaign's top 77 list after an intense vote which saw 261 nominees competing.
Other islands which did not make the cut are Christmas Island, Cocos Island in Costa Rica and Nicaragua's Ometepe Island.
Voting stopped on July 7 to allow experts, led by former United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) director-general Prof Dr Federico Mayor, to decide which sites would be shortlisted for the final. Voting has started again for the world to select new natural wonders that will be revealed in 2011.
The Sabah Tourism Board went on a campaign to encourage Malaysians and foreign visitors to vote for Sipadan, after it was reported in mid-February that the island had made it as one of 261 nominees.
Sipadan, an oceanic island formed by corals which grew on top of an extinct undersea volcano rising 600m from the seabed, is famous for its coral gardens, barracudas, trevally, turtles and a myriad of other marine life.
In 2002, the International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled that Sipadan and nearby Ligitan belonged to Malaysia, in a 16-1 majority verdict over Indonesia.
source:http://www.nst.com.my
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