The crash of the MSC Opera into the dock and a river tour boat while docking on the Giudecca Canal on Sunday in Venice Italy, has prompted new calls for limits or an outright ban of large cruise ships in Venice. After the crash, Venice’s mayor Luigi Brugnaro said, “Once again it is shown that big ships cannot cross the Giudecca Canal.”
“It worries me because it’s something that could’ve happened so many other times, and could happen again today, ” said Jane Da Mosto, an environmental scientist who heads We Are Here Venice, which wants to ban cruise ships.
“These cruise ships bring a huge, huge number of people concentrated into the city, and they’ve acted like kind of the icebreaker for the destruction of Venice through mass tourism,” Da Mosto said.
The argument over cruise ships in Venice has been going on since at least 2012, when another MSC cruise ship called in the port city. The arrival of the MSC Davina, which at 139,400 GT and carrying 5,329 passengers and crew is more than twice a large as the MSC Opera, in June of 2012, triggered protests that the ship was far too large for the waterways and facilities to handle. Italia Nostra (Our Italy), a conservation group, called for a limit of 30,000 GT for passengers ships in the Venice lagoon.
In 2013, Venice proposed banning liners of more than 96,000 tonnes from Saint Mark’s basin and the Giudecca Canal, but the decree was overturned by a regional tribunal. Then in 2014, the Italian government reinstated the ban, which also limits the number of smaller cruise ships calling on the city. In 2015, the Italian courts overturned the ban. The MSC Opera at 65,591 GT would have been allowed under the previous ban, in any case. (By the way, GT or Gross Tonne is a measure of the volume of a ship, not its weight.)
Since then there have been periodic protests against the tsunami of cruise ship tourism. Critics claim that the ships are too large to call on Venice and bring pollution and increased congestion to the ancient city. During peak season some 30,000 day-tripping cruise ship passengers disembark in Venice every day, which locals claim is ruining their city.
The most recent allision involving the MSC Opera has only added to the ongoing argument.
making a mole hill into a mountain
Keep the cattle boats out. Any benefit outweighs the cost. Venice is a world treasure that needs the best protection.
Sooner or later the cruise ship bubble is going to burst. Let’s hope it does before the many beautiful places they visit are totally overwhelmed by the thousands of visitors, far outnumbering the local population, destroy the very reason for going there.
The greed of the cruise companies and local businesses will not be dulled by the realisation that they are causing their own demise.
The cruise companies will just move to to a new destination leaving the local environment ruined, just like large fishing fleets hoovering up all the fish in the sea.
They have complained about this for years, the ships wake causes damage to buildings and land, it’s nothing new.