Fragile Venice lagoon still at risk even after decree diverting cruise ships, activists say
- The Italian Cabinet passed a decree this week calling for a public tender of ideas to create a new docking port ‘outside the protected waters of the lagoon’
- The fragile Italian canal city depends on tourism, but opponents of cruise ships say the boats are too large for Venice, cause pollution and threaten the lagoon’s ecosystem
Activists opposed to cruise ships in Venice are seeking a meeting with the Italian government to argue that its latest proposal to divert big ships away from St Mark’s Square does not address pressing environmental concerns about the fragile Venetian lagoon.
The Italian Cabinet passed a decree this week calling for a public tender of ideas to create a new docking port “outside the protected waters of the lagoon.”
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said the decree addresses long-standing Unesco concerns and establishes that cargo and cruise ships bigger than 40,000 tons must dock outside the lagoon.
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While it’s not articulated in the decree, the temporary plan would have big ships use the Marghera Port on the Italian mainland until a definitive solution is found and implemented – a potentially years-long process.
“Whoever has been to Venice in recent years, either an Italian or foreigner, has been upset seeing these ships – hundreds of metres long and high as a condo – pass by such fragile places as the Giudecca Canal or in front of St. Mark’s Square,” Franceschini said.
He called the decree a “very important” way to come up with a definitive new solution.
But the No Big Ships Committee, a coalition of activists, said the Marghera Port is still part of the Venetian lagoon and therefore must be rejected even as a temporary solution. The new route envisaged would take ships past the tail of the Lido and then hug the Italian mainland via the Oil Canal, away from Venice’s historic centre but still into the lagoon and up to Marghera.