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“I honestly believe we should take the opportunity of this lockdown to reflect and see how we can be more organised in the future to find a balance between the city and tourism.” |
'Nature is taking back Venice': wildlife returns to tourist-free city
With the
cruise ships gone and the souvenir stalls closed, the coronavirus lockdown has
transformed La Serenissima’s waterways
John
Brunton in Venice
Fri 20 Mar
2020 10.34 GMTLast modified on Fri 20 Mar 2020 15.55 GMT
Look down
into the waters of the Venice canals today and there is a surprising sight –
not just a clear view of the sandy bed, but shoals of tiny fish, scuttling
crabs and multicoloured plant-life.
“The water
is blue and clear,” said Gloria Beggiato, who owns the celebrated Metropole
Hotel a few steps from St Mark’s square and has a view over the Venice lagoon.
“It is calm like a pond, because there are no more waves caused by motorised
boats transporting day-tripper tourists. And of course, the giant cruise ships
have disappeared.”
Under
Venice’s strict rules of self-confinement to prevent the spread of the
coronavirus – all journeys but a trip to walk the dog or buy food are forbidden
– the ancient city has been transformed almost overnight.
La
Serenissima’s hundreds of canals have been emptied of speeding motorboat taxis,
transport and tourist boats. The chugging vaporetti water buses now run on a
reduced timetable. Even most of the gondolas are moored.
The clarity
of the water has improved dramatically. Swans and cormorants have returned to
dive for fish they can now see. At the Piazzale Roma vaporetto stop, ducks have
even made a nest. “Someone has put up a sign saying, ‘Don’t tread on the duck
eggs,’’” Beggiato said. “All totally unimaginable a while ago.”
As the
death toll from coronavirus in Italy outstrips that of China, the government of
Giuseppe Conte has tried to keep citizens at home using a mix of social media
and police controls.
But locals
are still moving about cautiously to do their daily shopping – except now in a
city without visitors. It is a remarkable transformation for a city that until
recently saw protests against overtourism under the No Grande Navi (“No more
cruise ships”) slogan.
At the
world-famous and usually overcrowded Rialto market, most of the fish and
vegetable stalls are still open, though customers are few and far between. All
markets are allowed to serve customers at a minimum one metre distance.
In a queue
to buy fish, Franco Fabris, an architect, reminisced: “When I was a kid growing
up, there were far less boats in the canals and lots of kids would jump in and
go swimming.”
“For the
moment I am not going out fishing as all the restaurants I supply have closed,
so what is the point?” said Franco Folin, a fisherman. “But when this all over,
we may well see more fish returning because for the moment pleasure fishing is
prohibited – there will be an awful lot of extra marine life in the lagoon.”
The
apparent cleanliness of the water is not in fact due to a lack of pollution,
said Davide Tagliapetra, an environmental researcher at the Institute of Marine
Science. He told a local TV station that the reason is the absence of motorised
transport, which normally churns up the muddy canal floor.
Matteo
Bisol runs the vineyard restaurant Venissa on the tiny lagoon island of
Mazzorbo, and has been campaigning for a more eco-responsible, sustainable
model of tourism in Venice for some time.
“For
goodness sake, it is not surprising there are fish in the canals of Venice,” he
said. “If there were not, then we should all be worried as the lagoon here is a
fragile ecosystem. People need to realise that if we control and cut down boat
traffic in Venice and its lagoon then we could all discover a unique
biosphere.”
It is not
just the cruise ships that are gone: the souvenir stalls that line the Riva
degli Schiavoni, the Murano glass and lace shops, and the bars and restaurants
are all closed.
It is a
brutal hit to an economy that relies on tourism, but in the meantime locals
appear to be rediscovering their city, in an admittedly constrained way.
“We
Venetians have the feeling that nature has returned and is taking back
possession of the city,” said Beggiato.
“If you ask
me today – sunny blue skies, clear canals – then, yes, we would all like Venice
to stay like this for a while. But we need, and look forward to, the return of
tourists, though maybe not the 20 million a year that we have had to cope with.
“I honestly
believe we should take the opportunity of this lockdown to reflect and see how
we can be more organised in the future to find a balance between the city and
tourism.”
This
article was amended on 20 March 2020 because an earlier version contained a
tweet which was subsequently found to contain incorrect claims. The
tweet has been removed.
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