美国国家公共电台 NPR As Tourists Crowd Out Locals, Venice Faces 'Endangered' List

As Tourists Crowd Out Locals, Venice Faces 'Endangered' List 

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Up to 90,000 tourists visit Venice, Italy, every day. There are more tourists in the city than permanent residents, and more residents are moving away. That's a problem. All this tourism is causing physical damage to the floating city. And as Christopher Livesay reports, neither the Italian government nor the United Nations Cultural Organization seemed to have solutions.

CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY, BYLINE 2: This is what 1,000 Venetians sound like when they're fed up.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

LIVESAY: Locals are blocking the steps of one of the city's main tourist sites - the Rialto Bridge. And instead of waving picket 3 signs...

GIOVANNI CLAUDIO DI GIORGIO: People are cheering and holding their carts in the air, which is - it was born as a joke.

LIVESAY: Giovanni Claudio Di Giorgio helped organize the march. The carts are shopping carts because Venetians say they can't even get to the market through the sea of tourists. And the joke...

DI GIORGIO: Put blades on the wheels, you know, like "Ben-Hur" - precisely 4 like that. You'd just go around, and you'd mow 5 people down.

LIVESAY: They didn't. But it's an illustration of how ticked off everyone was. Laura Chigi is a grandmother at the march. She says the local and national government are only interested in tourist dollars.

LAURA CHIGI: (Through interpreter) Venice is a cash cow, and everyone wants a piece.

LIVESAY: Just across St. Mark's Square, a cruise ship passes - one of hundreds every year. Their massive wake churns up the lagoon 6 bottom, destabilizing the foundations of the buildings themselves.

CHIGI: (Through interpreter) Every time I see a cruise ship, I go into mourning. You see the mud it drags, the destruction it leaves in its wake? That hurts those ancient wooden pylons 7 holding up the city underwater. One day we'll see Venice crumble 8 down.

LIVESAY: UNESCO, the cultural wing of the U.N., seemed to agree. Two years ago, it put Italy on notice for failing to protect Venice. UNESCO considers it a world heritage site. That's a prestigious 9 honor. That means Venice, at the cultural level, belongs to all of the world's people. UNESCO gave Italy two years to manage the tourism or Venice would be placed on another list, World Heritage in Danger, joining such sites as Aleppo and Palmyra in Syria.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Good morning, all.

LIVESAY: The deadline passed this summer, just as UNESCO was meeting. And only one representative, Jad Tabet from Lebanon, tried to raise the issue.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JAD TABET: Since several years, the situation of heritage in Venice has been worsening, and it has reached now a dramatic situation. We have now to act quickly.

LIVESAY: But UNESCO didn't even hold a vote.

ANNA SOMERS COCKS: It's been postponed 10 until 2017, which might well mean it will then be postponed until 2018 or 2019 or 2020. Do you know what I mean? You just kick the thing into the long grass.

LIVESAY: Anna Somers Cocks says it may be postponed even longer. She's the founder 11 and editor of The Art Newspaper and the former head of Venice in Peril 12, a group devoted 13 to restoring Venetian art. I asked why the U.N. cultural organization didn't vote to declare Venice a world heritage site in danger.

SOMERS COCKS: Because UNESCO is now intensely politicized.

LIVESAY: You think delegates were politically motivated not to say anything?

SOMERS COCKS: Yes, there would have been sort of back-room negotiations 14.

LIVESAY: Italy boasts more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world. Adding Venice to the endangered list would be an international embarrassment 15 and could even hurt Italy's lucrative 16 tourism industry. The Italian Culture Ministry 17 says it is unaware 18 of any government efforts to pressure UNESCO. As for the organization itself, it declined a request for an interview. And as for Venetians, well, they're exasperated 19.

DI GIORGIO: It’s a nightmare for me. Some situations are very difficult with tourists around.

LIVESAY: Like going to the market, says Giovanni Claudia Di Giorgio - then it hits him. This crowd of people isn't tourists. They're Venetians, and he says he's never experienced the Rialto Bridge this way.

DI GIORGIO: Because for once, we are the ones that are actually blocking the traffic - feels unreal. It does feel like we are some form of endangered species. I don't know. It's just nice. The feeling is just pure.

LIVESAY: Di Giorgio is 22, and he worries his generation might be the last to grow up as native Venetians. For NPR News, I'm Christopher Livesay in Venice.