Cruise passengers told to ‘go home’ by protesters dressed as polar bears

Enviromental activists blast expedition cruising as ‘indecent’

Cruise passengers were met by a crowd of around 80 protesters as their ship docked in France.

Travellers aboard World Traveller were greeted with shouts of “shame on you”, “go home” and “you’re not welcome” as they arrived into the port of Douarnenez in Brittany on Sunday.

The vessel, which has a capacity of 196 passengers, sailed into the Breton port as part of a 10 day cruise from Dublin, Ireland, to Lisbon in Portugal, priced from €8,048 per passenger, reports Euronews.

Many of the demonstrators were dressed up as animals, including polar bears and sea lions, as well as Venetian carnival goers, to protest against the environmental impact of cruising. One 25-year old protester said she is fed up with “luxury and expedition trips”.

These boats “spend their time going back and forth between the poles to do last-chance tourism: see the last penguins, the last polar bears, the last icebergs. It’s indecent,” she told news agency AFP.

Another protestor said that their demonstration was partly “in support of the polar fauna which is suffering from climate change and all the consequences of our way of life in this society.”

One said that “we don’t need this industry”, adding: “We are simply denouncing this industry which has no reason to exist.”

Several cruise ship disembarkations have had to be cancelled or organised under police escort in Douarnenez in recent months, reports AFP.

A report earlier this year found that cruise ships were responsible for more than four times the sulphuric emissions into Europe’s atmosphere than all the continent’s cars last year – equivalent to 50,000 flights between Paris and New York.

Expedition voyages to the poles brings their own complications. Research by the Nature Communications journal found that each Antarctic tourist effectively melts 83 tonnes of snow.

The 196-passenger World Traveller in the port of Douarnenez, western France (AFP via Getty Images)

The Independent has contacted Atlas Ocean Voyages, which operates World Traveller, for comment. The cruise line operates a number of itineraries through the Arctic and Antarctica.

On its website, the Florida-based firm says its ships feature “the latest hybrid power management and propulsion systems, maximising fuel efficiency and consuming as low as one-fifth the fuel compared to conventional cruise-ship systems, reducing our impact on the environment.”

One of the tourists arriving into the French port, Eric Scott, said it was a “useful educational experience”.

“That’s one of the reasons we travel – to get perspectives from other places,” he told AFP.

The Italian city of Venice has long been at the centre of the anti-cruise movement but other European port cities have also placed restrictions on larger vessels, including Santorini, Palma de Mallorca and Dubrovnik. The mayor of Barcelona has previously called on the regional government to curb the number of ships allowed in the city’s port.