China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will set hand to preserve and protect its local section of the Great Wall, the first such kind of move in the local history, said the regional government on Sunday.

Preservation and protection will go to a 2-km-long section that locates in the Beibao Village, Qingshuihe County, which was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368 A.D. to 1644), government official told Xinhua.

Like any other architectural site in the world, the Great Wall is at risk of damage caused by natural and human activities. In some sections, its bricks and dirt have even been used as construction materials.

According to the official, preservers has finished field survey earlier, and the project is expected to be finished in two or three years.

The Great Wall, which was listed as the United Nations World Heritage Site in 1987, was first built in the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.) to defend China against invasion by northern nomadic tribes.

The northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region owns 15,000-km-long Great Wall built in different dynasties, accounting for one third of the country's total. The section that built in Ming Dynasty stretches about 1,100 km.

(Xinhua News Agency September 7, 2008)