To strengthen the protection of intangible cultural heritage and carry forward the excellent traditional culture, government of Hunan Province proposes to make alegislated protection for intangible cultural heritage. On December 5^th,the nineteenth session of the twelfth National People's Congress (NPC) in Hunanmade a group discussion for Measures for theImplementation of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic ofChina’  in Hunan Province (Draft).

The Draft stipulates that the competent Culture Department of the governments at the county level in Hunan Province should make rescued records for the representative projects of intangible cultural heritage on the verge of extinction, using scientific and technological means to comprehensively and truly record its contents, forms, techniqueprocesses and so on, and collect relevant data to be properly kept. Meanwhile, governmentsat or above the county level in Hunan Province shall establish thecorresponding list of representative projects of intangible cultural heritages.

To strengthen protection and inheritance, the Draft stipulates that Cultural Departments at or above the county level in Hunan Province shall determine protection departments and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects.  Departmentsfor protection of representative projects must perform their duties including making an overall collection and preservation for the materials, and make are gistration as well as organizing for files; Moreover, making an effective protection for the sites which the projects relied on. The inheritors of representative projects have rights in passing on techniques, displaying skills, teaching and doing academic researches, enjoying the governmentsubsidies and providing original data, physical objects and location to others.For those specific regions with important historicaland cultural values and broad mass basis that have rich, concentrated andcomplete intangible cultural heritage resources, the Draft clearly defines that the governments at or above the countylevel in Hunan Province may establish cultural and ecological preservationzones to do regional overall protection for intangible cultural heritages. For buildings, sites, monuments and its appendages which are directly associatedwith representative projects of intangible cultural heritage, governments at orabove the county level in Hunan Province shall delimit the scope of protectionand take effective measures for the protection of cultural relics and urban and rural planning and construction.

The Draft also makes the legal liabilityclear. If the Cultural Departments of the People's Governments at or above thecounty level and other departments in Hunan Province don’t take effective measures to do rescued protection of intangible cultural heritages on the verge of extinction and cause serious consequences, or, if it is not in accordancewith the law of making representative plans to protect intangible cultural heritage or no supervision and inspection of the implementation of the protection plans and cause serious consequences , person directly in charge andother persons directly responsible for it shall be investigated for legal responsibility according to law.

Source:HunanDaily

Time:2015-12-06