Arlo Haskell was born in Key West, Florida, and Karla Hart has been a near lifelong resident of Juneau, Alaska. They are more than 4,500 miles apart, but in their view, have a lot of the same problems.
They believe that cruise ship tourism has overrun their towns.
Key West and Juneau each see more than 1 million cruise ship passengers each year. Haskell and Hart said the intense tourism had diminished quality of life for year-round residents, degraded the environment and over time replaced vibrant local businesses with monotonous “trinket” shops catering to cruise passengers.
That is until 2020, when the pandemic brought an abrupt halt to cruise travel.
The sudden stop put in place by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) left residents in ports of call months to organize and gave the environment time to recover.
In Key West, organizers collected signatures for three ballot measures for this year’s 3 November elections that would restrict cruise ships to the smallest and most environmentally friendly. And they won – by a landslide – even as the pandemic shredded the local economy.
“It felt good to know we had taken the high road and won – yes, on passion, but also on facts and staying positive and putting out a good message,” said Haskell, one of the leading members of the Safer Cleaner Ships initiative, which organized the referendums. “We were on the receiving end of some pretty negative campaigning.”
Covid-19, and Key West’s landslide vote, have since been viewed as turning points in local communities’ relationship with the cruise industry.
“Covid-19 is the first time I’ve ever seen where there was widespread community empowerment turning ships away,” said Hart. “Communities were saying, ‘No, you can’t come to port here.’”
Fear of Covid-19 led some localities, then nations, to temporarily halt cruise tourism. Ships stopped sailing in the US on 13 March, after the CDC tracked 17% of all Covid-19 cases in February and March to the ships. A months-long halt to cruise ship traffic followed.
Businesses closed and once crowded seaside streets were ghost towns. Lockdowns, fear and economic devastation wrung out a particular type of pain known to people who live in beautiful places without a living.
But, these months have also left some activists inspired to reimagine tourism, when it returns, and invigorated calls to make the industry more responsive to people who live in cruise destinations.
The cruise industry “never asked” whether they could bring in “more ships and bigger ships”, said Hart. “They simply arrived and demanded, because of the clout they have achieved.”
One of Haskell’s co-campaigners, a fishing guide and lifelong islander named Will Benson, put it more bluntly before the referendums passed: “We want our fucking island back.”
Cruise ships were under increasing scrutiny in 2019. The size of ships has more than quadrupled since the 1990s, making them 220,000-ton monsters on average. Now, larger ships include climbing walls, ice rinks, theaters, dining halls, malls, spas and casinos.
Growth in ship size also increased environmental impacts, local residents said. In Key West, larger ships stirred up more seabed sediment and clouded waters, adding pressure to fisheries and reefs. In addition to contributing to the climate crisis, scientists believe, ships may cause air quality concerns for port residents, because they use fuel containing more sulfur than on-land diesel engines.
Many activists credit the pandemic with providing a moment of pause needed to reimagine the possible.
A global network of activists formed in September, roughly six months after the first Covid-19 lockdowns. Activists from Venice to Antwerp to Sydney, and back in the US in Bar Harbor, Maine; Charleston, South Carolina; and Juneau, Alaska, formed the Global Cruise Activist Network.
“It brought the first summer with clean ocean breezes,” said Marg Gardiner, an activist in Victoria, British Columbia, at a virtual September event held to announce the formation of the Global Cruise Activist Network, according to the Juneau Empire. “The industry is not healthy for our community.”
Members of the activist network range from groups who want an end to the use of fossil fuels such as Extinction Rebellion to local residents who simply want some deference shown.
The Cruise Lines Industry Association, a global trade association group, did not respond to a request for comment about such activism or Key West’s recent ballot initiative.
In Juneau, Hart said, local people were able to use trails and beaches they usually avoid because heavy foot traffic from cruise ship excursions overwhelms the sites.
“This summer was a record-setting, horrible, gray, dismal, rainy summer, as well as being a Covid summer,” said Hart. “Despite that, it was hard to find a trail or a place at any time from early till late that didn’t already have people on it – local people.”
Activists said, even in a time of unprecedented upheaval and sorrow, the eye-opening season they have experienced may bring renewal.
Key West’s decision to limit cruise traffic was a “glorious victory”, said Hart.
“The cruise industry has managed to frame it that we have no local say over anything,” said Hart. “Now, Key West has really shown that that is not necessarily true.”
