Website of Amami City announces its plan for world natural heritage registration of Amami Islands, Ryukyu in 2017

http://www.city.amami.lg.jp.e.it.hp.transer.com/kankyo/sizenisan.html

There are a couple sites bidding for 2017 that are not yet on a tentative list. Old Jakarta and Kekexili Nature Reserve (China) being other aspiring nominations, usually this is just overhyped promotion or excitement. If these sites have any chance for 2017, then they probably would have had to already have submitted their proposed site to UNESCO for approval on the tentative list, no?

The deadline for 2017 should be Feb 2016, and there is no rule to not allow site in tentative list for immediate nomination! If Indonesia, China or Japan can push all thing before Feb 2016, it should be fine, but again judging from many nominations in recent years, to create nomination dossier within 1 year is quite impossible.

For Amami, they draft nomination dossier since 2013!

Seemingly, Nimes is aiming for 2018 alongside Carnac. Hopewell seems more and more unlikely, because the NPS is not pursuing any nominations until the current issue with UNESCO membership/payments is resolved. The US nominations for 2014, 2015, and 2016 were all officially chosen before the Palestinian dilema. Korea's natural nomination Southwestern Coast Tidal Flats has long been quite and all articles point to only (1) Korean nomination for 2017. China, France, India, and Japan are all a bit difficult to predict and/or research because they have several potential candidates. Indeed, some articles even hint at aspiring tentative sites aiming for 2017! I decided not to include those here. More articles are mentioning the Primeval Beech Forests extension, this may very well be possible for 2017, but it seems sensible to include it when the tentative nomination is added to the country lists.

Qinghai Hoh Xil (China)

Now that this nomination is official, the reports for a 2017 (natural) nomination seem very possible.

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-01/26/content_19409037.htm

Great Spas of Europe was postponed to 2018 and should be omitted here.

I am unsure if this is a new nomination or an extension?

The Ancient Waterfront Towns in the South of Yangtze River (CHINA)

http://www.ecns.cn/2015/04-02/160388.shtml

Interesting to see the argument used to justify the reconstruction of the Al Fahidi area "He also mentioned that there are sites, such as post-Second World War sites in Warsaw, Poland and some Japanese temples, which were restored and made it onto the list."

Of course the Warsaw example actually made a virtue out of the reconstruction by claiming that it itself had OUV so is not strictly relelvant to the Al Fahidi case (assuming that UAE isn't using the same argument!).
Regarding Japanese Temples - it seems to be generally accepted now that wooden buildings inevitably have to be rebuilt across the years and that such reconstutcion should not be a barrier to inscription.
In addition it also seems to be accepted that restoration after fires and destruction can be OK e.g Kinkaku-ji. Similarly, it would seem unlikely that UNESCO would remove the Kathmandu Valley from inscription just because the main buildings will (eventually) all have been reconstructed after the recent earthquake (In fact many of them will also have been reconstructed after the 1934 earthquake and this didn't prevent subsequent inscription).

So - where does that leave assessment and definition of "Authenticity". Is it ok to reconstruct after a fire or earthquake but not where an area has just become "run down" and buildings are collapsing as in the case of Al Fahidi? Is it that authentic materials and construction methods must be used as well as the previous designs and plans in the same location? What if the original buildings had been replaced in the past by different "non authentic" structures and what is being reconstructed is the "last but one" set of buildings? Can these still be "authentic"?

I get the feeling that Dubai Creek is going to become a WHS no matter what its merits are. I guess there are pretty limitless funds mixed with a strong desire to get it inscribed.

From this news - Jewish Cemetery Hamburg-Altona & the caves of the oldest Ice Age art in the Swabian Alb will be proposed for 2017


http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/augsburg/Historisches-Wassersystem-wird-2018-als- Weltkulturerbe-nominiert-id33901337.html

It's a bit unclear, I think the actual meaning is:

Augsburg Water Management - nomination 1. February 2018 for decision in 2019
Jewish Cemetery Hamburg-Altona: nomination 2017 for decision in 2018
Caves of the Ice Age Art: nomination 2016 for decision in 2017

Of the (2) Japanese candidates one will be finalized in July 2015. Les Iles Marquises seems to have been delayed to better select the various islands/boundaries of the nomination. I also tried to update China's nominations, this is from a translated statement from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) website, "The "Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins" as China in 2017 officially declared world cultural heritage project."

Items from our list of 2016 that were not submitted and might be submitted for 2017:

Parc National de la Pendjari (Benin)
Sambor Prei Kuk (Cambodia)
Gulangyu (China) - third site
Zaruma (Ecuador)
Umm el-Jimal (Jordan)
Plains of Jars (Laos)
Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve (Mexico)
Myauk-U (Myanmar) - second cultural site
Pleistocene Occupation Sites of Klasies River, Border Cave, and Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa)
The Archaeological Site of Gobeklitepe (Turkey)
Ed-Dur Site (UAE) - third side

It is also plausible to assume that at least some of the incomplete sites will be forwarded again for 2017:

- Ruin of M'banza Kongo (Angola)
- Dirre Sheikh Hussein (Ethiopia)
- Holqa Sof Umar (Ethiopia)
- Mole National Park (Ghana)
- The Sacred Complex of Babylon (Iraq)
- Bathyz Grassland ecosystem (Turkmenistan)
- Orheiul Vechi Archaeological Landscape (Moldova)
- Aphrodisias (Turkey)
- Paraty (Brazil)

Metallurgical sites (Burkina Faso) applied for funding in 2015. This nomination too could be submitted for evaluation for 2017 or 2018.