NATURAL LANDSCAPE, DIVERSE ECOSYSTEMS

Cerrado Protected Areas
Comoé National Park
Darien National Park
Lorentz National Park
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park
Olympic National Park
Sangay National Park
Sian Ka'an
Virunga National Park

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/categories/category45.html

My selections

Cerrado Protected Areas
Darien National Park
Lorentz National Park
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park
Sangay National Park

My selection;

Virunga National Park

PS: Wouldn't the Sangha Trinational fit also here? If yes, I'd choose it too.

I find this category difficult because most sites fitting it are great to begin with.

My selection:

Cerrado Protected Areas
Darien National Park
Lorentz National Park
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park
Olympic National Park
Sian Ka'an
Virunga National Park

As recognised elsewhere, our categorisation of natural sites has resulted in, at least superficially, similar NPs in the same geographical area finishing up under different categories. So we need to look across those categories in order fully to decide.

I start from the view that we need at least one West African NP and accept that there are different climatic zones in that area. How many of Comoe, Tai, Sangha do we need? We can't I feel grind too small and try include every sub zone - even though that is a reasonable objective for UNESCO/IUCN across the full list.

The same point applies to the Central and South American NPs.
So, of the above, Virunga and Lorentz are IMO shoo-ins. The rest I would like to take stock on later taking into account the entire range.

Going along with Solivagant's train of thought, I'm basing my selections on choices I've already made in the Wildlife Habitat, Fauna category.

Lorentz National Park -- represents the ecological diversity of New Guinea
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park -- represents the Amazon basin
Olympic National Park -- represents the Pacific Northwest of the US

Other choices on this list are good, but they repeat geographic regions I've already made selections for (with the possible exception of Comoé National Park, which goes farther into West Africa than I went with the Dja Faunal Reserve). I'd love to include Sian Ka'an, but I'm already using Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve to represent Central America.

My selection:

Lorentz National Park

We are still missing views here.

Weird category. Later on we can look if these sites can be transferred to other categories.

Cerrado Protected Areas - No - only of regional significance?
Comoé National Park - No - centered around a River, doesn't seem very specific except for being in West-Africa
Darien National Park - Maybe - "area of first contact and interchange between two major, previously isolated landmasses, which is reflected in its biodiversity" sounds interesting, but does it show enough?
Lorentz National Park - Yes - for representing the biodiversity of New Guinea
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park - No - contender to represent the Amazon, but we already have Central Amazonian for that
Olympic National Park - No - combi of mountains and coast, interesting but not as great as Yellowstone/Yosemite
Sangay National Park - No - mostly volcano (though of superlative beauty)
Sian Ka'an -No - mostly a coastal/marine site, I see no extraordinary features
Virunga National Park - Yes - already in for Fauna, biodiversity noted too

This category needs to be summarized.

Summary:

Cerrado Protected Areas
Comoé National Park
Darien National Park
Lorentz National Park
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park
Olympic National Park
Sangay National Park
Sian Ka'an
Virunga National Park

I've brought these over to the main page at http://www.worldheritagesite.org/allbyrank.php
I think it is difficult to discuss this category on its own.

I have tried and failed to work out the sequence in which sites appear on the page under eg "recommended"?
I presume that doing it by category runs into logical problems because of sites assigned to more than 1?
Any chance of a running count ?

More work for this too I am afraid!! Some sites really need a summary of the arguments - eg Meroe. do you need suggestions for blank ones?

It's by year of entry on the WH List!
Gives us a different angle.
The count now is 636 sites.
I'd like to have arguments for all on the A and B list (Yes and Maybe).