The Mountain wants YOUR VOTE!

Do you love your mountain? Then exercise your global democratic right and vote for Cape Town's stunning icon to become one of the new Seven Wonders of the natural world.

Table Mountain is one of 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition, in which the world's top natural sites are being whittled down to seven winners in an exercise in global democracy that is expected to draw over a billion participants.

In 2007, the New7Wonders Foundation, a Zurich-based non-profit organisation, announced the New 7 (man-made) Wonders of the World after more than 100 million votes were cast via the internet.

Its follow-up campaign, to choose the 'big seven' of the natural world, entered its final stage on 21 July 2009, when a panel of experts, led by former Unesco Director-General Federico Mayor, announced the 28 finalists.

The panel made its selection from a list of 77 nominees that were chosen from a list of 261 national and cross-national representative sites, by people around the world in internet voting.

The final, two-year round of voting to choose the New 7 Wonders of Nature runs through to the final official declaration of the seven winners, which will take place on 11 November 2011 (11.11.11).

An African honour

Only one other African site, Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro, made the list of finalists, which include some of the world's most spectacular mountains, canyons, lakes, waterfalls, ocean reefs and a myriad of other natural attractions.

These range from the extremely famous - the Grand Canyon in the USA, the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, and the Amazon rainforest spanning nine South American countries - to relatively lesser-known sites, such as the mud volcanoes of Azerbaijan and the Puerto Princesa underground river in the Philippines.

How to vote

Anyone can vote online, via SMS or by phone.

• Go to http://www.votefortablemountain.com (you will get the chance to cast 7 votes for your choice of 7 Wonders).
• SMS the word TABLE to 34874. SMSs cost R2 each.
• Phone 0044 20 334 709 01 and punch in 7725 (Table Mountain's voting code). Once you hear a 'thank you' message, you have voted and may hang up. This is an international call to the United Kingdom.

Some reasons to vote for Table Mountain

• Whichever way you look at it, Table Mountain is simply stunning. Take a look at the gallery on www.votefortablemountain.com.
• Table Mountain forms part of Table Mountain National Park, one of few conservation areas in the world that is entirely surrounded by a city.
• Table Mountain forms part of the Cape Floral Region, a Unesco world heritage site that is one of the richest areas for plants in the world. Table Mountain National Park has more plant species within its 25 000 ha than the entire British Isles or New Zealand.
• The trip up the Table Mountain cableway to the plateau 1 km above Cape Town is not to be missed. To the north are vistas of the city, Table Bay and Robben Island, and to the west and south the Atlantic seaboard. Yes, there are panoramas in the world to beat this, but they're strictly reserved for high-end rock climbers.
• Speaking of rock climbers - and hikers, paragliders and adrenaline junkies (the world's highest commercial abseil happens right here) - Table Mountain offers an accessible fix.
• Table Mountain is the only terrestrial feature to give its name to a constellation. The constellation Mensa - meaning 'The Table' - is seen in the Southern Hemisphere, below Orion, around midnight in mid-July.

Page Created: 2 August 2011