VENICE, ITALY – JUNE 08: The protest by No Grandi Navi begins to move from the Zattere on June 08, … [+]
Reactions following the news that Italian cruise companies MSC Crociere and Costa Crociere have cut Venice from their itineraries serve as a reminder that Venice’s precarious relationship with tourism is still far from resolved.
Monday saw triumphant posts on social media as anti-cruise ship protest group Comitato No Grandi Navi scored a victory in their fight to keep big cruise liners out of the fragile lagoon. MSC Crociere and Costa Crociere are due to restart sailing on August 16 and September 6 respectively, but they have announced they will be replacing Venice as a departure point with Trieste and Genoa.
The anti-cruise ship activists had been threatening to block giant liners from entering the lagoon at all costs, such as using boats to make a blockade. On Monday, the group declared, “We said it, we promised it, and so it will be: no ships will enter the lagoon for the entire season.”
Cruise ships have been a source of controversy in the canal city for years both because of their damage to the lagoon environment and the swarms of day-trippers they deposit in the city. Citing a study by Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University, Comitato No Grandi Navi writes, “Between air pollution due to fuel combustion, its effect on the population’s health, the environment and climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases, and the pollution of the sea from the discharge of solid waste by ships … the study estimated the costs at 320 million per year.”
TOPSHOT – MSC Magnifica is seen from one of the canals leading into the Venice Lagoon on June 9, … [+]
In addition, they write, there is “the damage to the monuments due to the high sulfur content of the fuel, the damage to foundations, the morphology of the lagoon due to the displacement of the huge hulls that cause erosion and the damage due to the excavation of the wide navigable canals that are transforming the lagoon into an branch of the sea.”
Safety fears were also sparked last June when the MSC Opera cruise ship’s engine failed causing it to smash into a dockside and a smaller tourist boat in one of Venice’s canals. Now, concerns over COVID contagion risks on cruise ships has added yet another reason for their rejection.
VENICE, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 30: Protesters on small boats take action at the passage of a cruise ship … [+]
However, the environmental triumph of No Grandi Navi was quickly followed by a counter-protest that saw port workers, porters, water taxi drivers, gondoliers and seasonal workers demanding a return of cruise ships for essential economic aid. They have also written an open letter to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and to the city’s mayor Luigi Brugnaro saying, “We are over 1700 Venetian workers, we have families … we haven’t worked for nearly a year.”
This latest clash serves as a reminder that the city desperately needs to find solutions to saving people’s livelihoods while controlling the mass tourism that was suffocating the city pre-coronavirus.
Were all cruise ships to be kept out of the delicate lagoon, Venice’s monuments, foundations, and lagoon ecosystem would be better protected. The move, however, would require a complete rehaul of Venice’s economic model to ensure those whose work depends on cruise ship passengers would not suffer.
Campaign group Comitato No Grandi Navi wrote on Wednesday, “We will not fall into the trap of the conflict between the right to health/safeguarding the environment and work.” The group acknowledges the economic effects of no cruise ships arriving in Venice, but remains firm that the only way of protecting residents and jobs is that, “the current crisis should, in contrast, be used to impose a new model of development for the city and work.”
