Mompox, a UNESCO World Heritage site located by Magdalena River shows the problems of conservation practices in Colombia. It is a line paradigm that divides nature from culture, and the physical object of conservation from the cultural practices that surround it. This is seen with the local market in Mompox. In order to achieve the international standards of what constitutes a “historic center” the local people where displaced from the old building to a new market; a dark concrete building by the regional road. Yet to move the market away from the river is to misunderstand the nature of the people’s culture. That their identity and culture is symbolically and emotionally intertwined with the river. By removing people and their activity, it becomes an empty monument. It reinforces value, where value is within a static structure. The view is on the object and not the processes shared by material, the geography and the culture.