As of May 2023 a number of the links referred to in my 2 reviews of CCL are broken. Many (but not all) are still available if you enter the link into Wayback Machine

As previous reviewers have identified, the first problem when making a visit to the Coffee CL WHS is to determine where exactly the boundaries are and how you “know” if you are/have been inside them. The execrable maps provided on the UNESCO Web site (Michael Ayers - I agree with every word you say!) show 6 inscribed “landscape areas” (or “Zones”) which cover a large area of central/western mountainous Colombia. I have studied those maps (and other sources), both before and after our travels, trying to make sense of them and, before reviewing any of the areas we visited, I will cover below the conclusions I reached and suggestions as to how others might use the available sources to determine their own visits to this WHS ensuring that they visit a core area if they so wish! If the detailed boundaries of the CCL are of no interest to you then please read no further!

The best entrée to making sense of the boundaries is via the Nomination file. The Executive Summary on PDF Pages 10/11 states that “The Coffee Cultural Landscape (PCC) covers areas of 47 municipalities spread over four Colombian departments” (these in turn are spread across the 6 “Zones” so a few departments, e.g Risaralda, have areas in more than one zone) and lists those “municipalities” within each relevant “Department”. Taking “Caldas Department” as an example - the inscribed area “includes rural areas housed in the municipalities of Aguadas,,…Chinchiná .... Manizales, Neira, Pácora……Salamina…… and the urban areas of the …..Chichiná, Neira, Pácora, ..... Salamina and San José municipalities”. So - a “Department” comprises “Municipalities” and a “Municipality” contains “rural” and “urban” areas. But which rural and which urban areas are inscribed? “In Colombia, the rural areas of each municipality are divided into “veredas” or rural districts, which are considered the smallest territorial divisions possible in the country. The PCC includes certain veredas of the above mentioned municipalities”. The Urban areas are in turn called “Casco Urbanos”. So – a “Department” has “Municipalities” and Municipalities have “Veredas” and “Cascos Urbanos”! The inscription content is defined at this lowest level of “Vereda and “Casco Urbano”. BUT – there are 2 additional complexities. First - whilst it seems normal to inscribe complete “Veredas” and “Cascos Urbanos” I haven't studied every map and can’t guarantee it! Second, and more importantly, when the nomination file states that urban and rural areas in a municipality are “inscribed” it uses the word “inscribed” to include BOTH Core and Buffer zones!! So – some listed Veredas and Cascos Urbanos are only in buffer zones and indeed some listed municipalities only include Buffer zones!! This latter aspect only becomes clear on PDF Page 19 – “The PCC’s Buffer Zone also includes areas in the municipalities of Viterbo (in Caldas), Dosquebradas and Mistrató (in Risaralda) and Argelia (in Valle).” That is why some documents refer to 51 municipalities being “inscribed” – the 47 which contain SOME core area (though which may be mainly Buffer) plus 4 which definitely only contain “buffer zones”. So I hope that is all clear now!

How can you make sense of this “on the ground? As identified by Michael Ayers, you will, as you travel through the area, frequently pass under enormous brown signs sporting a UNESCO Logo and stating e.g “Palestina PCC. Paisaje Cultural Cafetero”. Unfortunately they cannot be relied upon to determine whether you are in a “Core” area! E.g - As you cross the modern bridge in Pereira into the next admininstrative area you will pass another large brown sign (Photo) with a UNESCO Logo stating that you are now in “Dosquebradas Paisaje Cultural Cafetero”. Dosquebradas is a municipality in the Risaralda Department, Even the awful UNESCO map shows clearly that the inscribed boundary reaches nowhere near the crossing point from Pereira to Dosquebradas!! Furthermore the Nomination file even states “The PCC’s Buffer Zone also includes areas in the municipalities of ….. Dosquebradas….” So the whole of Dosquebradas municipality is “claiming” a UNESCO logo on the basis that a PART of it is in the Buffer Zone!! It contains NO core areas whatsoever! I am afraid that overhead road signs just cannot be relied upon as proof that a core area has been entered. They seem to have been placed to indicate that you have now crossed the boundary into a Municipality which contains an inscribed area – somewhere (and maybe not even a “core area”)!! This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that there are often adjacent signs stating "Aqui comienza el Municipio de xxxxx"

And what about the core boundary of a “Casco Urbano”? We visited 4 of the towns within Caldas Department included in the list of included “Urban Areas” above – Chinchina, Salamina, Pacora and Neira. Now, if you spend any time in Colombia, you will grow to know and love the ubiquitous, standard design Information Boards which grace nearly every Plaza Major and stand outside any building of “interest”. They have a front, back and side with the name of the site written vertically on the side face and in those 4 towns I can confirm that the board included a UNESCO Logo on both font and side! However the information boards in Salento have also managed to find an "excuse" to show a UNESCO logo (small - on the front). This is in direct contradiction with what is written in the Nomination File - “Filandia and Sevilla housed in the Buffer Zone are also exceptional, as is Salento, located in its surroundings”. i.e Not only is the urban area of Salento NOT in the Core zone – it isn’t even in the Buffer zone – merely in its “surroundings”!!! This seems to show that Information Boards in towns can also NOT be relied upon to confirm WHS "Core" status.

It is a mess. From its comments and questions I don’t believe that ICOMOS understood this nomination (Its deferral recommendation to sort out boundaries etc was overturned of course). The Nomination file seems designed to confuse and bring in every aspect of the area whether in the core or buffer zones – or indeed in neither!! Thus, large parts of it are concerned with describing towns, musea etc etc which are clearly NOT a part of the inscribed site.

So, I am afraid I have concluded that, particularly as regards rural areas, the ONLY reasonably sure way to ascertain whether you have entered/are planning to enter a core zone is by zooming in on and studying such maps as are available – however poor they may be. In addition to the Nomination maps I have also found a set at the “Municipality” level. They are within the Web site of the organisation which “runs” the entire “PCC” scheme and initiated the Nomination itself. This seems to be a umbrella organisation carrying out PR and Lobbying for all matters related to coffee within the 4 departments it represents. As such, it “fights” for all its areas and this perhaps explains both why it pushed through such enormous areas for inscription and why it is complicit in the “muddling” of what is “core”, what is “buffer” and what is neither! For convenience you can access the same maps as are in the Nomination file here  The Municipality maps are to be found here (Choose 1 of the 4 Departments and then whichever of its municipalities you wish to investigate in detail! This will download a 3 page document. Page down to the Municipality map on the 2nd page. Note the "green" to indicate which areas within the Municipality and its Veredas are growing coffee.The 3rd page lists all the separate “rural” and “urban” areas in that Municipality both “core and “buffer”). Unfortunately these maps too are very poor and make it difficult to relate inscribed administrative boundaries to roads or natural features – but they do provide more clues!.

These detailed maps demonstrate why road signs placed at municipality boundaries cannot be relied upon. But they may also provide some “good news”! If, for instance, you have visited Salento and are disappointed that it isn’t even in the buffer zone you can use the map of Zone D and the appropriate Municipality maps to confirm that, if you had reached it from the south up Rte 29 from Armenia you WILL have passed briefly through the core zone!!

And so to our visit in Dec 2019. We mainly visited Zone C and only briefly passed through Zone D. That is situated south of Periera around the towns of Armenia and Salento. BUT I can confirm that none of those 3 towns is actually within the core or even a buffer inscribed area. Zone C is situated to the North of Pereira, particularly around Chinchina, and also stretches in a thin strip north of the largest town of the area at Manizales. This "capital city" of Caldas has a population of over 400k and is said to be “at the heart of coffee production in the region” – but it too is excluded from both core and buffer. In fact, among all the inscribed areas, inclusion of “Cascos Urbanos” within the core is uncommon and, if you are in a town, then probably you are NOT inside an inscribed area! You will need to check at “Municipality level”!

Here are the Municipality maps for the 4 towns we visited whose “Cascos Urbanos” ARE inscribed as core areas –
a. Chinchina  
b. Salamina 
c. Pacora 
d. Neira 

Conversely here are some Municipality definitions to show towns which are NOT included in a core area
a. Salento 
b. Filandia (in buffer zone only)
c. Calarca  ("officially"in buffer zone only but the map suggests that part of the Casco Urbano area might be in the core zone)

I will cover our visits to the 4 above towns and their related “Veredas” in my next review and limit this one to the issue of “boundary establishment”!