Some about Qhapaq Nan that I don't think are included (though it's difficult to tell from that draconic nomination file):

-Holiest site - Qhapaq Nan (Temple of the Sun at Cuzco)
- Passage of the sun - Qhapaq Nan (Temple of the Sun at Cuzco)
> Qorikancha/Temple of the Sun lies in buffer zone (yellow dot instead of green)

Dubbed as another WHS - Qhapaq Nan (Tiwanaku is dubbed Baalbek of the New World.)
> connection should be about qhapaq nan, that's not dubbed as another WHS

Cathedral - Qhapaq Nan (Cuzco)
Dominicans - Qhapaq Nan (Cuzco Cathedral)
> cathedral does not lie directly at the Plaza de Armas. so I think it's outside the core zone (and it's also a bit of a stretch to relate christian monuments to an inca site)

RE: Dubbed as another WHS:
We have got several other sites on this connection with only parts of the nominated area dubbed as another WHS (Tasmanian Wilderness, Strasbourg, Prague, Bahai sites, Neusiedlersee...). Either Qhapaq Nan is in or all of those should be out.

Another reason is that I don't want to double all connections from Tiwanaku or Cuzco into Qhapaq Nan. The "Dubbed as" already is covered by Tiwanaku, I think that's sufficient.

Great Himalayan National Park - Greatest Altitude Variations
>> please explain the difference in altitude

Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc - Natural Arches and Bridges
>> is the arch included in the core zone of the WHS?

Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc - Rhino habitat
>> the connection is about living rhino's

"Starting from an altitude of 1,700 metres above mean sea level, the highest peak within the park approaches almost 5,800 metres" (Nom File pdf page 275)


No -only in the buffer zone

Shahr-i Sokhta - Necropolises
>> same as the cemeteries we already have?

The Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin in the Judean - Canals
>> please elaborate or give a source

Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites - Built or owned by French
>> The Japanese used French examples and machinery, but it wasn't really built or owned by French people?

Van Nellefabriek - Contains significant structures from the 20th Century
>> doesn't fit the criteria for this connection, whole site is from 20th century

Bolgar - Fusion
>> source? quote?

Twin Towns: Bet Guvrin and Maresha are from different periods

Bolgar - Mosques converted from churches / cathedrals / synagogues
>> which one? name?

Zurich Hotspot: there's an overlap here with the Jura/Swiss Alps hotspot. The Swiss WHS are pretty accessible, so you could see most of them using just 1 location. I would limit it to a circle of around 2,5 h drive from Zurich. La Chaux de Fonds would be in, Vauban and Lavaux are a little further away and much more convenient for the Jura/Swiss Alps hotspot.

http://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/1370
"canaux souterrains"

Translates to English as "Underground channels" not "canals" (and translated that way by UNESCO!)

I feel that "Canals" should be restricted to man-made water courses for transportation (though there is an issue about "decorative canals" in palace gardens etc)

We also have
a. Cisterns - which the Caves of Maresha certainly have - "des citernes et des canaux souterrains". Are you not always/often likely to get some "channels" with "cisterns"?
b. "Irrigation and drainage" - potentially a bit of an overlap here!! There are the enormous "cisterns" as in Sri Lanka whose main purpose is to support agriculture and there are much smaller cisterns as here and in towns/fortresses whose main purpose is to provide drinking water.

Pagoda - Bergpark (Mou Lang)
Pagoda - Kew Gardens (Great Pagoda)
>> I'll leave these two under "Chinoiserie" (they're not religious buildings)

Library - Lorsch (The King's Hall may have served at a time to host the monastery's world famous library.)
>> can you provide a source and elaborate more on the value of the library, and is there still something left of it?

I'm not too sure about the attribution of these to the named Biodiversity Hotspots:

- Jeju - Japan
- Carlsbad Caverns - Madrean pine-oak woodlands
- Eastern Himalaya and Nepal - Manas, Kaziranga
- Mediterranean basin - Meteora
- Macquarie - New Zealand

Does anyone know of a source where the exact boundaries of the biodiversity hotspots can be checked?
So far I have only used the maps available online, but they are all too imprecise.

I presume you are using these maps? As per this set for the Mediterranean Basin -
http://www.cepf.net/where_we_work/regions/europe_central_asia/mediterranean/Pages/def ault.aspx

Isn't the problem that the "Hot spot" area is just ridiculously large? In this case the entire Mediterranean Sea plus much of the Atlantic approaches covering Macaronesia, together with the entire littoral and then going inland for a fair distance (e.g virtually the whole of Spain, Portugal and Italy).

In fact of course the scheme is concentrating on just limited sites within this enormous area categorised on the maps as
a. Priority
b. Other key
c. Corridors -these tend to be very large

Might it not be better to limit WHS "Connections" in this respect to those which are situated within a "Priority" and (possibly??) "Other Key" area???

I see, on further reading that the "Priority" and "Key" areas seem to be a CEPF concept rather than an inherent aspect of the Myers definition.


There is no doubt that Manas and Kaziranga are within the Eastern Himalaya hotspot as per this map http://www.cepf.net/where_we_work/regions/asia_pacific/eastern_himalayas/Pages/defaul t.aspx

Similarly, Meteora is within the Mediterranean hotspot as per this map http://www.cepf.net/where_we_work/regions/europe_central_asia/mediterranean/Pages/def ault.aspx

It does still seem to me that, by "lumping" all these WHS together under a single Connection we are in "danger" of listing a fair percentage of the total 191 Natural and 31 Mixed WHS and thus losing any "focus" the Connection might have brought to the subject!. If we are to do so might it not be better to "connect" at the individual Hotspot level rather than the overall one - i.e WHICH hotspots are represented by which WHS. I see that the Indo-Burma hotspot for instance contains virtually the whole of SE Asia north of Malalysia and parts of S China and Eastern India and would seem to contain at least 7 WHS - but these are scattered among total list and are difficult to identify
http://www.cepf.net/where_we_work/regions/asia_pacific/indo_burma/Pages/default.aspx

Of course that would leave out any WHS which was in a hotspot with fewer than 3 WHS such as Cape Floralistic Region. An alternative might be to have Hotspot subsets (34 if we are using the Hotspot definition which adds 9 to Myers's original 25) within the overall connection and "allocate" WHS to them using the same logic structure as for the WHS hotspot connection but without the "at least 3" requirement? That might well leave the odd individual "hotspot" entirely unrepresented by a WHS - but that in itself would be interesting to highlight.

Regarding other potential WHS for this Connection
a. Belize Barrer reef - contains coastal/island land areas and is presumably of the Meso-American Hotspot? Unesco says "A total of 178 terrestrial plants and 247 taxa of marine flora has been described from the area."

I second Solivagant's first proposal. I think the the single biodiversity hotspots merit a connection of their own.

According to this map http://databasin.org/maps/new#datasets=23fb5da1586141109fa6f8d45de0a260

Jeju is outside the Japan hotspot, Carldbad Caverns is outside the Madrean Oak hotspot and Macquarie is within the New Zealand hotspot.