Beijing has made remarkable progress in the protection of the cultural heritage of the city's Central Axis, highlighting the ecological conservation and preservation of cultural relics along the north-south line, an official of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau said at a seminar recently. 

With the protection of the Central Axis as a starting point, the city has strengthened preservation of related cultural relics and ecological conservation of surrounding areas, said Chen Mingjie, director of the municipal cultural heritage bureau. Represented by a newly renovated broadcasting station in the Temple of Heaven, a series of archaeological programs are ongoing. The southern part of the axis is undergoing restoration to better reveal the history of the city, Chen said. 

To better protect major cultural relics along the axis, the city has made much effort to improve the surrounding environment. A set of high-rise buildings have been transformed into lower-rise ones, greatly restoring the historical landscape of the core area of Beijing, Chen said.  

Fourteen experts and scholars shared their insights on ways to better protect the axis during the seminar. 

Yu Ping, a counselor to the Beijing municipal government, said that the renovation of historical landscape is also conducive to improving the environment of the old downtown area of Beijing. 

In the past five years, the green coverage rate of the core area of the capital increased from 31.9% to 33.8%; the coverage rate of parks and green spaces within a 500-meter radius of residential areas grew from 92.73% to 96.89%, Yu said. 

Lyu Zhou, a professor at Tsinghua University, said that over 30,000 people across the world have participated in this year's competition for the promotion of Beijing Central Axis, and that the increasing participation of youth in the protection of the cultural heritage of the axis has demonstrated the public's growing cultural awareness.  

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