BEIJING: No more than 2,500 km remain of China's 6,300-km-long Great Wall that is dubbed as the world's largest cultural relic, according to an investigation report from the Chinese Academy of the Great Wall.

Holding human activity responsible for the plight of the Great Wall, Dong Yaohui, secretary general of the academy, criticised short-sighted residents who dig out earth and bricks cheaply, Xinhua reports.

In addition, some local governments tore down the wall, built or reinforced in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), for their new construction projects and some businessmen restored the wall illegally for tourism defying its original design.

All this has severely damaged the historical monument and made the Great Wall protection an urgent task, stressed Dong.

"Only a few people who damaged the Great Wall were given criminal sentences. Most Great Wall destroyers were only fined or given administrative punishment," said Dong.

He said that as early as in 1961, the state council had promulgated a regulation on cultural relic protection, requiring mapping out protection zones for the Great Wall, designate special organisation to take charge of its protection and to keep records and files for the Great Wall.

But decades passed and there are still no protection zones for most segments of the Great Wall, allowing commercial influence on the ancient relics.

Recently, a real estate developer built 11 villas near the Badaling Great Wall in suburban Beijing, damaging the architectural appearance of this segment of the Great Wall.

In some places, the Great Wall records were merely two or three sheets of papers. There was no detailed and original data at all.

"Once the Wall is destroyed due to natural or human reasons, it is impossible to restore its original look with such slack records," Dong added.

Therefore, Dong appealed to the central government to make a thorough survey on the whole Great Wall and write detailed records as reference for future wall restoration.

He also suggested enacting an exclusive regulation on the Great Wall protection, which should define detailed punishment measures on wall destruction and clearly regulate the rights and duties of the Great Wall protection organisations.