Intrepid hikers will not be permitted to explore those unprotected
sections of the
Great
Wall around Beijing from August onwards.
The move is part of a long-awaited regulation aimed at protecting
the Great
Wall and was brought in by the Beijing Administrative Bureau of
Cultural Relics Thursday.
The Beijing Municipality which extends far beyond the city's urban
environs, has some 629 kilometers of the wall. But an increasing
number of visitors in recent years to the wilder and more fragile
stretches is threatening irreparable harm to the structure.
Each year, an average 5 to 6 million people from all over the world
visit sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, bringing in
millions in revenue, but causing incalculable damage, according to
the bureau's statistics.
In
the past decade the municipality's counties and townships have
designed a series of visitor areas along the wall and also a number
of hotels, shops and other facilities including cable cars which
carry visitors to the steep sections.
"Some areas of the Great Wall have lost parts of their original
structures, such as military installations, and instead look more
like a market," Sun Ling, an official with the bureau, told a press
conference Thursday in Beijing.
The new regulation has given the bureau the authority to draft a
ruling which prohibits the building of any structure that poses
physical and aesthetic damage to the wall and its natural setting.
The prohibition extends 500 meters on either side of the wall.
Another major problem for the relic protection department is that
half of the Great Wall, mostly hidden in the mountains, is in a
poor state, lacks protection and is in urgent need of
renovation.
The daily activities of local villagers, such as herding, gathering
firewood and cultivating wasteland, have hastened the natural
deterioration of the wall.
More recently, as more and more people like to explore the wild
sections of the wall, these parts have also been placed in
jeopardy.
Under the new regulation, any activities, including those
mentioned, which damage or threaten the Great Wall will be
forbidden.
The new regulation is said to be the first one in the country
dedicated to the protection of the Great Wall.
(China Daily June 27, 2003)