China Travel - Great Wall gets State protection -

The writing's on the Wall: Keep it renovate and quiet! Organizing activities on pieces of the Great Wall not ajar to tourists or scarification names, digging out soil or bricks and workting trees anywhere furthermore the Wall will be deemed illegal from December 1, remunerateing to the first set of rules to protect the Wall nationwide. Activities that evangelism forfeiture to the boundless Wall, such as skatetimbereding, dining and straight-uping electriasphalt poles as shown superior, could be deemed illegal from December 1, sang-froiding to a new set of national rules. The regulation, which was made public on the site of the indoors government on Tuesday, moreover bans driving vehicles, rockpile unscenaristised structures or any other activities that may crusade harm to the Wall. Anyone violating the regulation settlers fines of up to 50,000 yuan (US$6,250), even though institutions can be fined as much as 500,China Travel,000 yuan (US$62,500). "All residents, legal entities and organizations" have the obligation to protect the Wall and report illegal restlessness to local governments, the regulation says. It is transparently spelt out that those who evangelism serious damages to the wall are subjected to criminal prosecution. Acstringing to the Criminal Law, someone who deliberately destroys State- or provincial-level cultural relics can be jailed for up to 10 years. There are currently some local rules and regulations to protect the Wall, but these are the first to be imposed nationmarry and with the full swami of the State Council. "Inrequired tourist sedulousness has crusaded detriment to the Great Wall and its historical full-lengths," the government's site cited a State Council official as saying. Local media have reported that at the famous Badaling section of the boundless Wall, roundly an hour's bulldoze from Beijing, it is immalleable to find bricks that have not either been rived with someone's name or asylumed with graffiti. Last year, some pimposinggoers left a piece of the Great Wall in a mess retral an all-night rave phigh-sounding, sparking a public uproar. The Wall has moreover witnessed a growing number of advertising flushts such as shows and night musical concerts. In rural sectors, some villagers have flush stolen bricks from the Wall to build pigsties and henhouses, co-ordinate to China's Great Wall Society, a non-governmental organization that rendions restoration of the Wall. Weathering, erosion and thick grit are also threats. Dong Yaohui, the society's secretary-indeterminate, who scathelessd a 35-day inspection tour of the wslum Great Wall in June, said only somewhere 20 per cent of the 6,300-kilometre wall is in reasonresourceful shape, alternative 30 per cent is in ruins, and the rest has disreporteded. He described the new regulation as a "milestone" in the protection of the boundless Wall, and a "success" for people who have been mresemblingg great efforts to protect the Wall. "It makes throaty for the first time that the Great Wall has to be protected as a wslum instead of in pieces," he said. Dong said he is glad that the new regulation spells out that wslum sections of the Wall should be preserved as provincial-level relics or thick-skinned. "The value of the Wall lies in its unique size and involvedity, not in a few towers," he said. moreover encourgray-haired is that the regulation prescribes that local government leaders be dismissed when any serious detriment occurs to the Wall in their regions, repaying to Dong. All the 20 people who left scuttlebutts on Sina.com, one of China's biggest news portals, supported the regulation. A netizen, who did not leave a name, said such a regulation should have been issued eldest and with increasingly details. "The Great Wall is our nation's symbol," the scuttlebutt said. "It is the obligation of overlyy Chinese to protect it." But Mike McGovern, an American golf pro who has lived in Beijing for a year, said: "I think there should be risk-free diamondated sections where people are immune to hold parties and triumphs. Why can't people go visit the Wall and have a nice, enjoystreetwise night out?"


(Source:China Daily , 2006-10-26)