24 November 2024
Protesters greeting the Princess Cruises ship in Pōneke on Sunday morning wore bowties, top hats, and waved Monopoly money as they marched in front of the passenger shuttles coming into the central city. This is the fifth time since the start of the summer cruise season that protestors from Climate Liberation Aotearoa have disrupted this ship.
According to spokesperson Frank Preddey, the protest aims to challenge the myths about the economic benefits of the cruise industry, particularly in the wake of the recent press release from the New Zealand Cruise Association claiming massive economic boons to the New Zealand economy, a claim they have refused to provide verifiable data for.
“Requests for the full report to be released have been denied, so we are expected to take these numbers on faith. What we do know is that their data doesn’t line up with international studies on the subject,” Preddey says.
“But regardless, if we think about who is seriously profiting off this industry, it isn’t local business owners, it’s the cruise companies themselves and their shareholders – and they’re generating that profit to the detriment of our local landscapes and ecosystems.”
Princess Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruises, has a spotty history with New Zealand environmental regulatory bodies, with the Coral Princess being turned away in 2022 for insufficient cleaning, known as “biofouling,” that could have introduced invasive species. The company also has a long history of receiving multi-million dollar fines for illegal waste dumping and breaching environmental regulations while on probation. These protesters aim to regulate Princess Cruises and the cruise industry as a whole. In particular, Climate Liberation Aotearoa is campaigning to ban cruise ships entirely from sensitive natural environments such as Fiordland.
“We’re talking about an area with real historical and cultural significance to Aotearoa New Zealand, being turned into a commodity for the international cruise industry to wrap up and sell to its customers,” Preddey says. “This area is also the home of ten marine reserves, sensitive natural ecosystems that we haven’t actually even begun to understand in earnest; but still we roll out the red carpet for hundreds of loud, massive, massively polluting luxury cruises to pass through every summer. Even if every data point in the NZCA’s press release was true, it wouldn’t be worth the environmental costs.”
Otago University’s Dr. Inga Smith reported that going on a cruise is on average 3-4 times more harmful to the environment than flying and staying in a hotel. According to a different study from 2021, as much as 90% of waste produced on cruise ships is discharged into the ocean. “We welcome these tourists to come visit Aotearoa in a more sustainable way, instead of cruising,” says Preddey. “It would be better for the economy and the environment.”
Climate Liberation Aotearoa branches in Otautahi Christchurch and Otepoti Dunedin will be greeting the ship in kind when it stops in their ports in the coming days.