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Smaller Than They Seem
In the recent wrap-up of his visit to Georgia and Upper Svaneti , Nan reminded us of the extremely limited core zone of this WHS. Upper Svaneti is a historic region centered around the town of Mestia, but this site covers only one village some 2 hours drive away! It triggered me to look for other WHS that are ‘Smaller than they seem’, with the purpose of bringing them together in a new connection and alerting future visitors so they can prevent the dreaded 'near miss'.
Possible connected sites
In addition to Upper Svaneti, I found the following:
Vegaøyan – The Vega Archipelago (Norway) does not cover the full archipelago, especially large parts of the main Vega island (where you will arrive) are excluded. Also, the title has a ‘natural’ feel, while it is a cultural landscape focusing on the local lifestyle of fishing and eider down harvesting.
Lower Valley of the Omo (Ethiopia) is a case study in itself as 43 years after its inscription its official boundaries are still unconfirmed. The ‘Omo Valley’ tours that are a staple of Ethiopian tourism and bring you to the tribes probably do not coincide with the WHS: not in geographical scope and certainly not in what to look for. They’d better have called the WHS ‘Hominid fossil sites in the Lower Omo Valley’.
Yakushima (Japan): setting foot on the relatively small Yakushima island isn’t enough, the protected area only covers the higher altitude center of the island plus some outlying portions.
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): the majority of Rio’s built environment is excluded - the core zone is limited to natural elements that have seen human intervention, resulting in a 'cultural landscape'.
Belize Barrier-Reef Reserve System (Belize): the reef is a well-distinguishable feature that can be seen all along Belize’s coast. Here the nuance lies in the ‘Reef Reserve’ in its name: seven protected sites have been selected.
Western Ghats (India): the Western Ghats is a huge mountain range that you are likely to cross once or twice when travelling overland in India; however the WHS is limited to 37 very specific parks and reserves which require some effort and formal entry.
Lake Malawi NP (Malawi): the WHS uses the same scoping as the National Park, but both cover only the southern part of the lake so Southern Lake Malawi might have been a better name.
Pantanal Conservation Area (Brazil): the ‘Conservation Area’ gives it away a bit, but this site covers much less than the region that is known as the Pantanal in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. Four adjacent nature reserves/parks that are seen as representative of the whole have been chosen. See the picture below, the striped bit with the logo is the WHS core zone within the wider Pantanal region in green.
Origins and consequences
The confusion all seems to stem from non-precise names. Maybe the Advisory Bodies should have requested a name change in these cases, a practice they haven't been exactly shy of recently.
Overall, I think the package always should reflect its contents. In some cases ‘Smaller than they seem’ even extends into ‘Not what you think it is’ as not only the geographical location is ambiguous, but also what kind of site it is. Omo and Vegaøyan are the best examples of this.
Do you know of more examples of WHS which are more limited in scope than their titles suggest?
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