Do not impose interests on the world heritage sites

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail People's Daily Online, July 5, 2012
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While criticizing the inadequate protection, we should also see that local governments made great efforts to protect these heritages while applying for world heritages for them.

In order to protect the "sacred land of ancient lives" of the Chengjiang Fossil Land, the local government shut down all nearby phosphor mines, planted more than 600 mu of trees, recovered 450 mu of farm land, built eight sediment control dams, returned 130 mu of farm land to forestry, and constructed the Maotianshan Mountain Green Channel of more than 10 kilometers long. The governmental department in charge of the Site of Xanadu constructed 26 kilometers of protection fence around the core area of the site, installed a 24-hour video security system, and built a meteorological station nearby.

However, after being listed on the List of World Heritages, the Site of Xanadu and Chengjiang Fossil Land, like other world heritages of China, are facing such issues as the commercialization and marketization, and if they confront these issues, the ancient civilization may be defeated. Therefore, the "sustainable development" of the protection on these heritages is more important than the protection works on them before applying for world heritages for them.

Regarding this issue, Tong Mingkang, the deputy head of the China World Heritage Application Delegation and the vice director-general of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, said, "In the past, some people of China said beautiful words in the World Heritage Conference but did not do beautiful things after they came back. They established hotels, restaurants and funicular railways in protected and monitored areas of world heritages. Currently, monitoring and early-warning systems have been established in many world heritages of China, including the Dunhuang Caves, Zhoukoudian, Summer Palace, Imperial Palace, Mount Wutaishan and West Lake. Starting from 2006, if the value, trueness or completeness of a world heritage is threatened due to the inadequate protection, it will be listed on the Warning List of China's World Heritages and reported to the public."

The supervision mechanism is important, but it is more important to make the mechanism work effectively. The key point is when we will get rid of the shackle of the economic interest and start to regard the protection on the civilization sacredly. If we enter the Site of Xanadu and find no evidence of the ancient civilization, it will be a sad thing for both the human and civilization.

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