BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) -- A controversial dragon project, planned as a tourist attraction in a national forest in central China, was started without environmental assessment and is illegal, the country's environment watchdog confirmed on Monday.

    The construction of the 21-km dragon in Xinzheng, Henan Province, has been suspended by the local government.

    The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has sent an expert team to study the project's environmental impact.

    "If our assessment shows the project will do great harm on the environment, we will order the completed part to be demolished," said an SEPA official.

    Zulong Company, the private developer behind the project, has already finished building a 30-meter-high head and 460-meter-long body section of the dragon.

    The dragon snakes its way along the top of a ridge of Shizhu Mountain, which was designated a national forest park in 2005.

    The dragon's body forms a nine-meter-high wall running for kilometers along the backbone of the ridge. The project is expected to cost 300 million yuan to complete.

    The project did not go through the proper planning and land requisition procedures and was ordered to stop in 2003, a year after it began without government approval, according to local government officials.