During its ongoing 28th session, the World Heritage Committee is investigating 121 World Heritage sites to determine whether they are being damaged or endangered as a result of improper management.
Four of the questioned sites are in China: the Imperial Palace of Ming and Qing dynasties in Beijing, commonly known as the Forbidden City; Lhasa's Potala Palace in the Tibet Autonomous Region; the ancient building complex in Hubei Province's Wudang Mountains; and the classical gardens of Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province.
A variety of dangers due to natural causes or human intervention constantly threaten sites inscribed in the World Heritage List, and the committee is responsible for maintaining a list of endangered sites.
These dangers may be specific and proven imminent threats, or they may be potential ones, when a property is faced with threats that could have negative effects on its World Heritage value.
The List of World Heritage in Danger is designed to inform the international community of conditions that threaten the sites so that corrective or preventive measures may be taken.
Inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger requires the committee to develop and adopt, together with the State Party concerned, a program for corrective measures, and it will continue to monitor the situation. All efforts must be made to restore the site's value in order to enable its removal from the List of World Heritage in Danger as quickly as possible.
Discussion and questioning are equivalent to a first warning. If no measures are taken to protect the site in question, it may be added to the List of World Heritage in Danger or simply lose its status altogether.
Suzhou was questioned, for example, because it was feared that the adjacent location of the new Suzhou Museum would have a negative impact on the 500-year-old Humble Administrator's Garden, one of the classical gardens that put Suzhou on the World Heritage List in 1997.
UNESCO's World Heritage Director Francesco Bandarin said, "We are not against all changes in the world heritage sites, and we are not freezing areas."
However, the committee carefully examined the design and purpose of the building, the structures that it replaced and the city's plans for urban construction through 2010.
The committee concluded that there were no apparent problems with the museum, which was designed by I. M. Pei. The local administration had done a "very careful project" on the museum, said Bandarin.
"The design of gardens in Suzhou is one of the important and famous living architecture in the world," Bandarin said. "A museum could become a complement to the garden for tourists and visitors."
Nevertheless, it is important for State Parties to understand that designation as a World Heritage Site is not a lifetime appointment.
"Ultimately, those responsible for managing the site must understand the purpose of applying to be listed. Otherwise, inscription on the list will do more harm than good to cultural and natural properties, because the managers will emphasize development at the expense of protection," said Xie Chensheng, an expert in cultural relics protection.
But maintaining a balance between protection and development is tricky.
Kong Fanzhi, head of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, said the committee is looking into changes in the surroundings of Forbidden City. Some say those changes have affected the city's heritage.
"Having international organizations remind us of problems in protection is good for us," Kong said.
He noted that almost 80 percent of the 102 sites that came under questioning at last year's session in Paris faced the same problem: balancing preservation and development.
"Improper planning of urban construction and development will have a negative impact on heritage protection. So we are now trying our best to reduce the negative as much as possible," he said.
Beijing has not approved a single building project along the city's central axis in the past decade, according to Kong. Demolition of houses on the eastern corner of the Huangchenggen area was stopped, as was the rebuilding of Beijing's old Dazhalan (Dashilar) business district near Qianmen.
To protect the Ming Tombs, another site included on the World Heritage List last year, the municipal government has banned construction of any new buildings in the surrounding areas, where 15,000 farmers live.
"In the future, we will clean up the areas outside the World Heritage Sites, step by step as the World Heritage Committee requires," Kong said. "As the capital of China, Beijing is developing. We are trying our best to reduce the influence of development on our precious heritage."
The office responsible for managing the Wudang Mountain site is expected to be questioned about its failure to prevent one of the buildings from being destroyed in a fire last year.
But officials from both Lhasa and Wudang Mountain management office said they had not been notified that they were to be questioned.
(China.org.cn, China Daily, Xinhua News Service July 1, 2004)
