2023-08-01 07:06:06
Go to slideshow (7)
A report by the UN institution denounces the lack of action in the face of mass tourism, urbanization and the climate threat. A vote will decide if the Serenissima will join the list of threatened sites in September.
Listed on the World Heritage List since 1987, will Venice be declared endangered by Unesco? Two months before the meeting of the 21 Member States of the World Heritage Committee, experts from the UN institution throw a stone into the pond. “We have decided to put Venice and its lagoon on the list of World Heritage in Danger“, can we read in a document published on the site of Unesco this Monday, July 31. At the heart of the recommendations of experts, including those of Icomos (the International Council on Monuments and Sites), the issues of mass tourism management, urban development launched without impact studies, motor boats and , more broadly, environmental problems of the lagoon.
In 2021, the same experts had already threatened Venice with an inscription on the list of heritage in danger. Italy had avoided this snub in extremis by prohibiting large cruise ships (more than 25,000 tons of gross tonnage) from entering the basin and the San Marco canal or the Giudecca canal. Ocean liners are now supposed to moor in the industrial port of Marghera, on the mainland where developments are being made, bypassing the city to the west.
Read alsoThe United States finds its way back to Unesco
“The loss of historical authenticity”
In November 2022, Italy had also submitted a conservation report, highlighting its efforts to raise the bar, including a project to raise Saint Mark’s Square. To combat the phenomena ofhigh water – Venice was literally drowned in 2018 and 2019 – the city finally put into operation the mobile dikes of the MOSE project, which regulate the circulation of water between the lagoon and the sea. The dantesque project was activated for the first times in 2020 and helped protect Piazza San Marco.
”
data-script=”
>
Recognizing the “efforts” of Italy, and in particular those for a “better coordination to protect the lagoonHowever, Unesco considers that this is not enough. “Significant progress” must still be carried out, say the experts, in particular to make the MOSE project fully operational. Wider, “a long-term strategy“must be designed, in order to avoid “irrevocable changes and loss of historical authenticity“. In the background, the experts regret that certain urban projects and uncontrolled tourist development endanger the heritage integrity of the city. Italy, one can read, is called upon to find sustainable solutionsand to carry out impact studies in the event of urban projects.
An electroshock
Unesco does not plan, for the moment, to simply remove Venice from the list of 900 world cultural heritage sites. The classification of a property on the “endangered” list is supposed to act as an electric shock. It is generally accompanied by an international emergency plan. “Unesco has a responsibility vis-à-vis classified sites” we say at the Paris headquarters. Such a decision is no less humiliating for the countries concerned. Italy would thus find itself in a list which includes 55 sites “in danger” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon or Ukraine, the excuse of the war or the lack of means and less.
The next committee will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 10-25. Members will sit to review and vote on proposed rankings or downgrades. Among the new sites requesting a cultural classification, we find the headquarters of the Calouste-Gulbenkian foundation in Lisbon, the burial mounds of Gaya in Korea, the archaeological site of Gordion in Turkey or those of the Talayotic culture in Menorca. France hopes to obtain a classification of the volcanoes and forests of Martinique as natural sites. The case of Venice, where the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention was celebrated in 2002, should create shock waves. At least Unesco hopes so.
#Venice #declared #endangered #Unesco #Experts #sounding #alarm