On Monday, July 31, Unesco recommended that Venice be added to the Heritage Site danger list, saying the city faced irreversible damage due to climate breakdown and mass tourism.
“The combined effects of human-induced and natural changes are causing deterioration and damage to built structures and urban areas,” it said in a statement.
According to theguardian.com, this is the second time in recent years that Unesco has threatened to blacklist Venice since its inclusion on the World Heritage Site list in 1987. The organisation noted that Italian authorities had not made any progress in protecting their heritage sites, and that improvements were hindered by a lack of collaborative strategic planning.
A Unesco World Heritage Committee will discuss recommendations in Riyadh during September. Venetian authorities said they would carefully consider the recommendations and speak to government.
To prevent blacklisting, Italy previously banned cruise ships weighing more than 25 000 tonnes from docking in Venice’s lagoon in 2021. The city’s flood barriers had also been made operational after severe flooding in 2019, however Unesco said these solutions were insufficient and needed to be developed further.
