Chinese cultural heritage experts have suggested that a lottery
should be issued to raise heritage protection funds, which has
proved successful in Britain, Italy and other European
countries.
Guo Zhan, Vice President of the International Council on
Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), said here on Friday that the cultural
heritage circle and related departments in China were very
interested in the lottery.
At an international conference on heritage conservation in
Shaoxing, east China's Zhejiang Province, Judith Cligman, from
Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund, gave a lecture on her experience
of the heritage lottery in Britain.
Established in 1994, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) funds
heritage projects such as parks, museums and projects about
language, dialect and cultural traditions, said Cligman.
Since 1994, more than US$5.8 billion has been granted to 16,700
heritage projects, which is the biggest investment ever made in
British heritage, according to Cligman.
"Heritage has been made accessible to a wider audience and is
enjoying mass appeal. More than 2 million people watched each BBC
Restoration series and 3.7 million people voted which building
would win HLF funding," said Cligman.
"If China can use the funds raised through a heritage lottery,
it will help solve the financial shortage and save more endangered
cultural heritage," Guo said.
At present, the funds for protecting China's cultural heritage
come mainly from government investment and local tourism
income.
Zhou Suning, an official from the preservation office of the
Classical Gardens of Suzhou, a world heritage site in east China's
Jiangsu Province, said they need two or three
times more funds for the protection of the gardens every year.
"We want to explore new ways of raising funds besides the
tourism income. And the heritage lottery is a good method," Zhou
said.
The lottery market is strictly controlled in China, and only
welfare lottery and sports lottery are issued.
(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2006)