单项选择题

In haste to inscribe their names on the World Heritage List--which includes countries or regions who pledge to protect their natural and cultural heritage--quite a number of localities must have calculated how much they will be able to cash in on the distinction (荣誉).
Despite the fact that the grant of such prestige is originally intended to have better preservation measures for the heritages listed, many local governments consider the U.N. title as a brand that can be flouted to attract more tourists.
But Wutai Mountain, a holy Buddhist site in North China’s Shanxi province, experienced a drop in income from tourism by 200 million yuan ( $ 29.27 million) in 2008, a year after it was listed as a world cultural heritage. In another case, the efforts to acquire the U. N. distinction have put the poor county of Libo in Southwest China’s Guizhou province, in a hole of 200 million yuan.
To acquire a place on the list, officials of Wutai Mountain, which has many Buddhist temples, has suffered an economic loss of at least 2 billion yuan in moving hotels or shops out of the site. The poor county of Libo, with an annual revenue of 286 million yuan, had spent more than twice its annual income in clearing up the environment of its karst caves. Now the county shares the title of U.N. natural heritage along with other two karst sites in Southwest China’s Yunnan province and Chongqing municipality. What is even worse is that the county will have to spend another 600 million: yuan in preserving the heritage in 10 years.
To make up for the losses and accumulate enough funds for the future, county officials said the region plans to accommodate 2.4 million tourists a year, much more than its capacity of a million tourists a year. Overstretching its resources will likely result in damage to the heritage. Then more money will be needed for repairing work. This will probably become a vicious cycle.
It is not easy to get listed as a world heritage and it is even more difficult to maintain its status. It is not important to be listed or not if a local government has the sincerity to preserve its site.
Zhangjiajie, a natural heritage on the U. N. list, in Central China’s Hunan province, received a warning from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)in 2001 for overstretching its tourism resources. Then it had to spend more than 300 million yuan in demolishing the extra structures within the natural heritage site.
Now there are still hundreds of places that are preparing to apply for the U. N. title. If they really want to preserve their sites as intact as possible, they can perform the preservation measures on their own, since the U.N. distinction does not make much of a difference. If they want the title only as an extra attraction for its tourism, it will probably turn out to be a zero sum measure.
For those governments already flirting with disaster, it is important to have a long-term vision for the preservation of their heritage.
According to the author, people should hold a/an ______ attitude towards the application for the world heritage title.