Venice belongs to the world. The claim is often made by individuals and organizations concerned about the city's survival in the coming decades. Venice is too important, they maintain, to be lost to the world - it belongs to the world, and the world should act as its guardian, protecting it for future generations. That this architectural wonder should succumb to the ravages of pollution and climate change is unthinkable.
VENICE BELONGS TO THE WORLD
Margaret Cameron • October 12, 2021
The petrochemical plant at Port Maghera has been responsible for significant pollution and damage to the fragile lagoon ecosystem. It is justifiably held by many Venetians to be public enemy number one. Just as concerning is the impact of climate change and rising sea levels for a city built on water.
Worrying issues indeed, and there is another problem - sometimes overlooked, often discounted - of equal significance. arm photo here to side of text.
Venice belongs to the world. And the world agrees, it seems, if tourist numbers are anything to go by. Visitors from all parts of the globe descend on the city each year, totting up more than twenty-five million visitations. This represents an environmental impost to a geographically small area, and massive disruption in the day-to-day lives of its fifty-five thousand residents. Look at it from their point of view.
Their city is consumed by tourists.
They crowd calli and clog the vaporetti.
Outlets selling everyday necessities have closed, replaced by retailers focused on the tourist trade. Basic service industries have declined or disappeared.
Housing has become scarce as accommodation is given over to visitors, and with scarcity has come price increases for the remaining housing stock. All too often, residents are left with no choice but to relocate, forced from their city by the tourist crush. Town planners postulate that Venice will in time cease to be a city of Venetians, becoming instead a Disneyland for grown ups, a watery theme park existing for no reason other than to entertain tourists.
The city's financial survival relies on the tourist trade, and Venetians have no wish to bite the hand that feeds. But sometimes it's just not worth the bother. Single-day and short-term tourists - from cruise ships or visiting from neighbouring towns - flood the city and put a strain on its infrastructure but spend little in return. They show scant regard for the city's heritage: a quick dash to the Piazza, a gondola ride and a gelato round out the Venice experience. Activist community groups like Venice My Future, Gruppo 25 Aprile and Campaign for a Living Venice advocate change in the tourism space, especially a ban on visiting cruise ships. The idea of limiting visitor numbers and encouraging longer stays gains traction.
As the world emerges from pandemic lockdown and travel recommences, Venetians hope for a tourism reboot. Locals want to share their city with the world; share it through tourism that is mindful, environmentally sustainable and beneficial to both visitor and host community.
Only then will Venetians have their city back.
Gondolas and Venice are inseparable. Think of one and the other immediately follows.
After all this time and writing and research, all those edits and redrafts, countless workshops and mentoring sessions, I can now say that it's official. My manuscript, 'Under a Venice Moon' will be published by Hachette Australia in April next year. I'm both delighted and grateful. More news to follow when I come down to earth!
In the fifteenth century, Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio put brush to canvas and came up with this famous work. It was entitled The Courtesans, and showed two women awaiting their male callers. Thus the matter rested for centuries. Recent technical analysis, however, has put the cat among the pigeons by confirming that the women were not courtesans at all. Far from it: they were in fact noblewomen awaiting the return of their husbands. How had this mistake come about? The painting had been divided and displayed as two separate panels - the upper section became known as Hunting in the Lagoon, the lower section as The Courtesans. But taken as a single work - as Carpaccio intended - changed matters. The women were clearly passing the time while their husbands persued the aristocratic activity of duck hunting. It underscores the point that many of the city's top sex-sellers were, in appearance, demeanour and lifestyle, the equal of noblewomen.
