Rough water ahead on Grand Canal

• Source: Global Times
• [23:11 December 15 2009]
• Comments

By Wang Chuyang

Jiangsu, Huaihe river section of the Grand Canal. Top:Ancient villages along the Grand Canal banks in Anhui. Photos:CFP

The romance of the Grand Canal, the world's oldest and longest ancient man-made waterway, has given way to environmental concerns that one of China's great cultural heritages is dying.

"Natural erosion, the dredging of navigation channels, and inappropriate development along the canal have together led to serious sediment deposits," says Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

From the imperial days when majestic dragon boats glided along the canal between Tianjin and Hangzhou, the original appearance of the Grand Canal is being destroyed, he says.

The scenic pagodas and ancient culture that took root on the banks of the "Golden Waterway" are also gradually disappearing.

The ancestors who dug the canal, once described as "a million people with teaspoons," could not have envisioned future freight growth and channel widening. Even today, Shan says, people seem rarely concerned with protecting the national folk culture that evolved on both banks of the canal.

The biggest challenge for the future of the Grand Canal is to maintain its historical and cultural values.

On the sunnier side, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage has spent the past two years formulating an overall development plan. The draft has undergone many revisions but work on the approved project is going ahead on schedule.