The
Great Wall, dubbed the symbol of China's spirit, is facing a
growing threat to its facade from the country's burgeoning tourist
industry, experts said yesterday.
To
protect the authenticity of the mammoth structure, which boasts a
history of more than two thousand years, the Beijing Administrative
Bureau of Culture Relics yesterday signed a memorandum on
conservation with the International Friends of the Great Wall, a
Hong Kong-based group aiming to protect the environment along the
Great Wall.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) is also taking part.
"This co-operation will bring domestic and international attention
and assistance to what is probably the largest cultural relic
protection challenge in China," said Kong Fanzhi, vice-director of
the municipal bureau.
"Increasing tourism, richer citizens, more cars, more leisure time
and cheap development opportunities near the Great Wall have all
been encouraged by the municipality's counties and townships but
threaten to blight more and more wallscapes north of Beijing," said
William Lindesay, founder and director of International Friends and
a trekker of nearly 2,500 kilometers of the wall in 1987.
"Litter, graffiti and illegal constructions are just the tip of the
iceberg that poses physical and aesthetic damage to the Great Wall
and its natural setting."
Beijing has 629 kilometers of wall, and "the cultural landscape of
the Great Wall" within it has been included by the US-based World
Monuments Fund on its "2002 List of the World's Most 100 Endangered
Sites," Kong said.
Municipal officials said they are striving to strike a balance
between preventing parts of the wall from collapsing and preserving
its authenticity.
The city is expected to issue its first regulation on Great Wall
protection later this year in a move that should deter more damage,
said Kong.
Edmund Moukala, program officer for culture at UNESCO's
representative office to east Asia, said the Great Wall, a gigantic
world heritage site, is being damaged, physically and
aesthetically, by human beings rather than natural
deterioration.
"A
saturated tourist industry is a disaster to the heritage site,"
Moukala said. "We should first educate people, especially youths,
about appreciating the value of the Great Wall to protect it."
(China
Daily July 17, 2002)