Since September 15, Shiyan in central China's Hubei Province, where the famous Taoist Wudang Mountains stand, has begun to enforce a tough regulation on the protection of a historical architectural complex in the mountains. Visitors who breach the regulation will be punished with a fine of up to 500,000 yuan ($75,856).

The local government has taken a string of measures to protect the Wudang Mountains, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994, such as forbidding cultivation, grazing animals, felling trees and so on. Recently, the local authorities toughened the restrictions, targeting not only visitors' bad behavior, but also forbidding construction work within the protection zone.

This is what historical architectural protection should be. Visitors must be prevented from carving, drawing or writing on cultural relics as well as damaging such cultural heritage in any way.

Because of the great value of history and culture, the Wudang Mountains have always been appealing for investment in tourism, business and real estate development. Without restrictions, development projects will surge and corrode the local environment. Over-development of the mountains and the historical architectural complex is detrimental to the famous cultural heritage.

In some places across China, however, historical sites have been damaged to make way for local economic development. According to the Third National Cultural Relics Survey, finished in 2011, of China's 760,000 immoveable cultural relics, 17.8 percent were in dire condition, while 44,000 had vanished.