Condition and Protection: Great Wall is in Danger!

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The Great Wall of China is on the list of 100 endangerd sites issued by the World Monuments Fund. The renovated walls open as tourist sites can not stand for the whole wall. In fact, less than 10% of the wall is visible to ordinary tourists. The real majority, more than 90%, are crumbling walls snaking between the mountains, undeveloped and poorly protected.The length of the walls built by different dynasties totaled 50,000 km, while the existing Great Wall is 21,196 km, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China. That means, half of the walls has disappeared in the course of history.What’s more serious is that the current number of 21,196 km is not constant. Instead, it keeps reducing! 30% of the Great Wall is disappearing at an alarming rate, mainly for two reasons. One is natural weathering. For thousands of years, the Great Wall has endured the ravages of the gobi desert. Plants growing into some walls accelerate its decay. Some walls and watchtowers are tumbledown, likely to be destroyed by just a storm. Another is reckless human behavior. Before 2000, people in remote areas, lacking the awareness to protect the Great Wall, knocked down bricks to sell, stole them to build houses, or even dug holes in the walls to raise livestock.Substantial measures to protect the Great Wall began in the 1980s, and until 2006, the State Council of China promulgated the Regulation on the Protection of Great Wall, effectively strengthening the conservation of the walls, forts, passes, and beacon towers, and standardizing the development and utilization of the Great Wall. However, are you aware now? Regulations can only regulate human activities, but weathering is inevitable for walls exposed to the vast natural environment. We can and will do our best to make it stand longer, but hurry up to go and see it before it disappears!