Great Wall to be repaired through crowdfunding

The 2016 Great Wall Public Offering project, initiated by the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation, officially opened its Tencent donation platform on Sept. 1. This is China’s first cultural preservation fundraising activity to utilize the Internet in such a direct, major way.

At a press conference about the project, Dong Yaohui, Executive Vice President of the Great Wall Society of China, said, “China’s Great Wall is a renowned world heritage site; however, the protection of the Great Wall currently faces a grim challenge. Take the Ming [section of the] Great Wall as an example: the total length of the Ming Great Wall is 6,259.6 kilometers. Currently, only 8 percent of that length is well-preserved. Twenty percent is under general protection and 31 percent has already disappeared.”

According to Dong, funds collected through the activity will be used to repair the Xifengkou section of the Great Wall in Hebei province and the Jiankou section in Beijing. The money to repair Xifengkou will come mainly from online crowdsourcing, though it will be supplemented by donations from more traditional sources. The total length to be repaired is 1,050 meters, and the cost will be about 23 million yuan. The first stage crowdfunding target is 11 million yuan.

The total cost for repairing the Jiankou section will be 15 million yuan, and the Tencent Charity Foundation has already donated 10 million.

Liu Shuguang, Vice Director of the State Cultural Relics Bureau, explained that the State Council approved the Great Wall Protection Program (2005-2014) in 2005. Since then, a total of 1.9 billion yuan of state revenue has been invested in repairing and strengthening the Great Wall. However, due to the wall’s massive scale, even this isn’t enough. Many people view greater participation as key to the successful preservation of the wall and other heritage sites in this era. (People’s Daily)