The complexity of safeguarding

Prof. Massimo Cacciari

Mayor of Venice

Today Venice is without doubt safer than it used to be 40 years ago. Protection from the sea has been reinforced and the essential services (electricity, telephone, etc.) have been brought up to standard. Extensive city areas have been raised. The fore warning alarm system had been improved and is increasingly precise, however, Venice needs to be looked after in many other ways First of all it is essential to understand that Venice is in the water 365 days a year and that the foundations of Venice are in the water and this generates extremely high maintenance costs. Besides we are the ones who have to contend with the tides: the 20 million tourists arriving in the city each year increase maintenance, waste disposal and public transport costs. Venice, more than great works, needs numerous daily, small, ordinary and extraordinary interventions. The funds destined to carry out the work on the mouth of the harbour have by now exhausted the funds for the ordinary and extraordinary maintenance work, including the ecological ones namely for lagoon maintenance, reclamation and restoration of the vast lagoon areas and also land for settlement and receptive purposes. So therefore also from this point of view it is necessary to change the strategy that has been followed in the past few years and to understand that the funds destined for maintenance and the morphological reorganization work of the lagoon habitat are of the upmost importance for Venice.