So Table Mountain is one of the “New 7 Natural Wonders of the World.” What exactly does this mean? Well I’m not entirely sure and I’m pretty sure that Pieter De’ Villiers despite his televised enthusiasm is not entirely sure himself. I love Cape Town and part of loving Cape Town is loving the mountain, it’s compulsory, it comes with the territory. You can’t be a daughter of the Mother City and be completely indifferent to the Mother City’s largest, most obvious and frankly most popular landmark. I am super stoked that Table Mountain is recognised as one of the 7 Natural Wonders and that that Cape Town is now once again top of mind for all tourists planning a visit to South Africa. I am just suspicious of what all this means for Cape Town. Have we not been let down by enough media circus publicity stunts that promised everything and delivered nothing but disappointment and failed entrepreneurial opportunities.
One wonders what made a Swiss born Canadian resident previously interested in aviation suddenly decided to start cataloguing the 7 Natural Wonders, especially seeing as that none of the 21 on the original list fell in Switzerland. The answer, as always in these affairs, is simple money. Now that the dust has settled and the publicity circus has left town the rather sordid truth is starting to be revealed or at least now that we have won we are actually starting to look for it. To say that some of were surprised would be an understatement, I know Table Mountain is beautiful but is it really one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The news that it had suddenly achieved this honour compelled many people to look into the criteria that was used to choose the top 7. As it turns out it was the nations that were willing to cough up the most cash that were most likely to get their landmarks on the list.
To truly understand how deep the scam runs you need to realise that the organisation that started the Wonders of the World campaign is not endorsed in any way by UNESCO the United Nations branch that is responsible for word heritage sights. Although it was started as a non-profit organisation, it has a for profit organisation attached which is, not surprisingly, profiting from the marketing merchandising and general media tomfoolery that has surrounded this whole affair. As the financial workings of these types organisations are not disclosed under Swiss law, it is not inconceivable that they are funnelling the majority of the money they make to a subsidiary that takes care of their marketing. Essentially the non-profit organisation spends its’ profit with its marketing subsidiary which is ideally not affiliated. In this case though they are, and the marketing branch of this charade has made itself a tidy sum of money. Naturally the money making hasn’t stopped there, any marketing or promotion that involves using the tag New 7 Natural Wonders comes at a heavy price. Consider for a moment what that means, Natural Wonders are controlled, usually by a national parks board or equivalent subsidised by the government. Those funds come from the taxpayers. So as excited as everyone is now to be on this magical list let no one forget that nothing comes for nothing.
