| SOUTH
CHINA MORNING POST
THURSDAY JUNE
20, 2002
Geologist
aims to protect ¡®WildWall¡¯ from ravages of progress
By Leigh Jenkins
A British geologist
who had the Great Wall added to the World Monuments Fund¡¯s
list of the 100 most endangered sites last year is hoping
his new organisation can put a stop to the construction, vandalism
and rubbish desecrating the largest cultural artefact on the
planet.
The International
Friends of the Great Wall, founded by William Lindesay with
the support of the Beijing Administrative Bureau for Cultural
Relics and Unesco, will focus on maintaining Beijing¡¯s undeveloped
¡°wild Wall¡±, spurring public education initiatives and strengthening
legal protections. |
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A British geologist who
had the Great Wall added to the World Monuments Fund¡¯s list of the
100 most endangered sites last year is hoping his new organisation
can put a stop to the construction, vandalism and rubbish desecrating
the largest cultural artefact on the planet.
The International Friends
of the Great Wall, founded by William Lindesay with the support
of the Beijing Administrative Bureau for Cultural Relics and Unesco,
will focus on maintaining Beijing¡¯s undeveloped ¡°wild Wall¡±, spurring
public education initiatives and strengthening legal protections.
Although about 15km of
Beijing municipality¡¯s Great Wall has been developed for tourism
and receives varying levels of government protection, the vast majority
of its 673km within the municipality has been exposed to the effects
of litter, graffiti and neighbouring construction projects.
¡°While the whole wall
is theoretically managed by government bureaus, the unique and phenomenal
expanse of the wall makes it uniquely impossible to protect,¡± Mr
Lindesay said.
He sees the ¡°wild Wall¡±
as an open-air museum without a curator, and wants a 200-metre buffer
zone around it so the wall and the natural backdrop can be enjoyed
in a pristine setting.
¡°There are three options:
let the free-for-all continue, let he local government build fences
around it and turn it all into a tourist site, or have an organisation
such as ours use stewardship to set up green-message notice boards
and organise local farmers to work as rangers,¡± Mr Lindesay said.
He says areas such as
Huanghuacheng illustrate the endemic results of neglect, where the
natural landscape has been altered by rubbish, graffiti, signs and
restaurants. Villagers have taken over certain watchtowers, extorting
money under threat of violence before permitting passage.
¡°Major developments in
close proximity to the wall threaten to scar the natural landscape,
given oversights in state land administration practices that make
it possible and inexpensive for developers to lease land-use rights
beside the Great Wall,¡± Mr Lindesay said.
If left unchecked, he
predicts the Great Wall¡¯s destruction will only be exacerbated over
time, given the increasing numbers of personal car owners visiting
the wall and dumping their rubbish, and estimates that China will
become the world¡¯s top tourist destination by 2020.
International Friends
of the Great Wall will solicit funds as a membership organisation
and will also seek the advice of conservation specialists, legal
experts and government officials in the 20 townships the Great wall
passed through in Beijing municipality.
Mr Lindesay, 46, says
his interest in learning more about the environmental quality of
the wall took off in 1987, when he spent 78 days jogging and walking
along a 2,500km stretch. He has been living in Beijing for the past
13 and half years.
The loss of the wild
Wall could become China¡¯s third great lament, after the loss of
the city wall and the traditional hutong alleyways,¡± he warned.
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