Unesco recommends putting Venice on heritage danger list

Venice risks being placed on the Unesco world heritage site blacklist unless the Italian authorities do more to protect the fragile city.

The United Nations cultural agency has recommended that Venice be added to the heritage danger list, saying in a statement on Monday that the city faced “irreversible” damage due to a litany of problems ranging from the effects of climate breakdown to mass tourism.

It is the second time within the space of a few years that Venice, which was inscribed on the world heritage site list in 1987, has been threatened with the blacklist.

Unesco said in a statement: “The effects of the continuing deterioration due to human intervention, including continuing development, the impacts of climate change and mass tourism threaten to cause irreversible changes to the outstanding universal value of the property.

“Moreover, the combined effects of human-induced and natural changes are causing deterioration and damage to build structures and urban areas.”

Unesco noted a “lack of significant progress” by Italy in addressing the issues, saying that improvements had been further “hindered by a lack of overall joint strategic thinking”.

The recommendation will be put to a meeting of Unesco’s world heritage committee in Riyadh in late September for adoption.

The Venetian authorities said they would carefully read the recommendation and speak to the Italian government, “which is the state party with which Unesco relates”.

The recommendation has been made despite Italy fulfilling a request from Unesco in 2021 to ban cruise ships weighing more than 25,000 tonnes from docking in the lagoon. The vessels now dock at the industrial port of Marghera. A spokesperson for the Venice mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, said: “They no longer pass by St Mark’s Square.” The ban followed years of protests against big ships.

Venice’s flood barrier, Mose, finally entered operation in 2020 after years of delay, prompted by severe flooding in the city in late 2019.

Unesco said the measures proposed by Italy to tackle the “complex issues” in Venice were “still insufficient and need to be further developed”.

After the 2019 flooding and the pandemic disrupted tourism in Venice, visitors are back in full force. The myriad issues have driven away the city’s inhabitants, with the population in the historic centre dipping below 50,000 last summer, leading the remaining residents to fear becoming “relics in a museum”.

cover photo:St Mark’s Square in Venice flooded at high tide. The population of the city is dwindling. Photograph: Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images