Mallorca
residents call for cruise ship limit of one a day in Palma
11,000 sign petition saying rise of ‘mega ship’ tourism is
unsustainable and undesirable
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
Thu 25 Jul 2019 13.17 BST Last modified on Thu 25 Jul 2019
18.25 BST
More than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling for a
limit of one cruise ship a day docking in Palma de Mallorca.
About 500 giant cruise ships dock in the city on the south
coast of the popular holiday destination of Mallorca each year, disgorging 2
million passengers.
The manifesto calling for curbs on the ships, which has
already been signed by more than 30 organisations and 11,000 islanders, will be
presented at a conference in Palma on Friday. It calls for a limit of one
cruise ship with a maximum of 4,000 passengers disembarking on any given day.
At present, there are often five and even as many as eight
moored in the port, with some 15,000 passengers on board.
The manifesto – drawn up by a group of more than 30 NGOs,
residents’ associations and community groups – asserts that “mega cruise ship
tourism has increased in a way that is unsustainable and undesirable for our
city, leading to serious environmental impact and increasing social protest”.
In a recent report compiled by Transport & Environment,
a European NGO, Palma was second only to Barcelona among European ports most
polluted by cruise ships.
The manifesto goes on to say that a cruise ship moored in the
port produces 200 times more airborne pollution than a motorway. The ships also
discharge “grey water” – from swimming pools and laundries – a mere four miles
off the coast. Oil slicks from sunblock in swimming pools have also been shown
to be harmful to marine life.
Marta Ferriol, coordinator of the NGO Tramuntana XXI, one of
the organisations backing the manifesto, says: “As an island we have limited
resources and these ships are like floating cities that discharge their waste
in our waters.”
“The problem is cruise ship tourists arrive all at once and
they saturate the historic part of the city,” says Ferriol. “They don’t spend
money in the city. We’ve recently seen a report from Venice that says this type
of tourism brings few benefits to residents.”
Jaume Garau of Palma XXI, another signatory of the
manifesto, believes that what lies behind the move is the election of a more
progressive government in Mallorca and a growing awareness of the need to
combat climate change.
“There is now a common project to manage tourism better in
the environmental context and we have political parties who are showing an
interest in bringing about this change,” he says.
Neus Truyol, the Palma councillor for sustainability and
urban issues, said: “Just as we have taken measures to limit tourist apartments
and hotels, now it’s the turn of the cruise ships.”
However, she added that any restrictions agreed were
unlikely to come into force before 2022 as contracts had already been signed by
the port of Palma and the cruise companies. She added that it would still be
possible to introduce measures to limit the impact on Palma’s historic centre.
Not everyone is opposed to the ships. A group of 10
organisations representing tourism bodies, taxi drivers and restaurants say the
cruise ships should not be “demonised”.
They point to a recent port authority report that claims
cruises bring €256m (£228m) to the island and support 5,000 jobs.
Nearly half of Mallorca’s 900,000 residents live in Palma.
The island received around 10 million tourists in 2018.
Controversy over
cruise ships is not limited to Palma. In Venice last month a huge ship
crashed into a wharf and a tourist boat, leading to renewed calls to ban or
limit their presence in the city.
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