BEIJING: When Great Wall enthusiast William Lindesay signed an agreement on Tuesday with UNESCO and the Beijing municipal government, it marked the high point of his four-year battle to reverse the rapid decline of sections of “wild” wall that had been largely untouched for hundreds of years.

Lindesay, 45, has seen first-hand the mushrooming of Great Wall tourism since he made a 1987 solo trek along the entire 2,470 kms of the main Ming dynasty (1368-1644) wall.

He moved to Beijing in 1995 and began to explore the 629 kms of Great Wall that, often in parallel defences, once protected China’s capital against Mongols and other northern invaders. He soon noticed the effects of the city’s economic development, which has fuelled huge growth in China’s leisure industries and an “enormous increase in mobility”.

“The cultural landscape of the Great Wall is being damaged... Litter and graffiti are just the tips of the iceberg,” he said. More serious problems include illegal and obtrusive construction on or near the wall, and the development of poorly planned tourist sites. Lindesay said the most urgent need was to educate people to regard such Great Wall sections as landscapes rather than just structures.

Without major advances in conservation work in the next few years, Lindesay said, the loss of “wild” Wall could become Beijing’s “third great disaster”, after the demolition of its city wall in the 1950s, and the razing of most of its traditional housing since economic reforms began in the 1980s.—dpa