{"id":32930,"date":"2025-07-09T12:42:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T10:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/?p=32930"},"modified":"2025-12-10T07:17:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T06:17:31","slug":"pavicic-on-split-the-sea-and-tourism-change-begins-in-the-non-governmental-sector-but-in-the-end-it-must-finish-in-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/news\/pavicic-on-split-the-sea-and-tourism-change-begins-in-the-non-governmental-sector-but-in-the-end-it-must-finish-in-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Pavi\u010di\u0107 on Split, the sea, and tourism: ‘Change begins in the non-governmental sector, but it must end up in politics’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jurica Pavi\u010di\u0107 <\/strong>is one of the most important contemporary Croatian writers and journalists.<\/strong> Sunce\u2019s staff member Ana Mileti\u0107 Milo\u0161, a Senior Associate in the Nature Conservation Department<\/strong>, conducted the interview. She has been following Pavi\u010di\u0107\u2019s work for years \u2013 both his journalism and his fiction \u2013 with particular interest. Her personal curiosity and respect for his reflections on social and spatial issues inspired this conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His novels, such as Red Water<\/em>, Matches<\/em>, A Book About South<\/em>, blend gripping narratives with deeper insights into society, family, and the southern Mediterranean mindset. Through both his columns and his fiction, he has spent years dissecting the reality that surrounds him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our talk with Pavi\u010di\u0107, we explored the themes that run through his literary and journalistic work: from family dynamics and war trauma to the transformations brought by the modern age. He spoke to us about Dalmatia not only as a geographical setting but as an emotional stage for his novels, about writing as a way of questioning reality, and about the need to address issues society prefers to sweep under the rug.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Relationship to space and sea<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In your books and essays, you often return to the theme of place \u2013<\/strong> its beauty, complexity, and change. How do you see Dalmatia today? What still makes us unique, and what is changing, perhaps irreversibly?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both locals and outsiders tend to view Dalmatia as a kind of southern Polynesia: a land of mild climate, hedonism, and Arcadian calm. On the other side, in Croatia it has a reputation as a sort of national backwater, our internal \u201cThird World\u201d: a place of half-finished houses, wild construction, hard-right voters, and tourism-driven rentiers who get money falling from the sky. Just glance at that section on Index.hr, full of bizarre scenes and badly parked cars which, by some miracle, are always from Dalmatia. Both narratives irritate me deeply. Outsiders usually miss the fact that the Dalmatian landscape is a space of conflict, of centuries-old, often Third-World-level poverty, of repeated rises and collapses where everything starts from scratch. On the other hand, those who expect a smiling tourist worker forget that tourism is always a class relationship: the served and the server. The key question is: who controls the means of production in tourism (space)? Locals or big investors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In A Book About South<\/em> you mention a Mediterranean of unfinished houses and unfinished business. How would you translate that idea to the state of our coastline today? Where is it most visible?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easier to say where it isn\u2019t<\/em> visible. Start with the abandoned terraced vineyards now overgrown and laid bare by fire; the old stone roads connecting the coast with the first inland ridge \u2013 Gornja Brela, Gata, Zadvarje \u2013 now used only by hikers; deserted mountain villages once tied to transhumant herding. Remnants of vineyards, olive groves, cherry and fig orchards which you can see even on Marjan hill. Or the \u201cabandoned coffee paths\u201d; two of them right at the entrance to the Ka\u0161tela Bay, on Cape \u010ciovo and Cape Marjan. Then there are the ruins of former industrial plants: in Ka\u0161tela, Dugi Rat, the failed sardine factories in Vrboska and Komi\u017ea. Finally, the crumbling socialist-era hotels: Marina Lu\u010dica Primo\u0161ten, the Dubrovnik Belvedere, Krvavica, Kupari. Dalmatia has lived through several cycles of boom and bust, each time betting everything on a single card that eventually failed: 19th-century viticulture destroyed by phylloxera; 20th-century socialist industry crushed by globalization; and now tourism, which will soon be hit hard by global warming. In all three cases, collapse was triggered by external forces we couldn\u2019t control. And in all cases, the traces remain etched into the landscape as melancholy reminders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the sea a place of rest, memory, worry? And is your boat a form of resistance to the changes in the landscape?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to call a boat an act of resistance. For me, the boat is zen, immersion in the landscape, quiet. That\u2019s why I prefer anchoring overnight in wild coves; I only go to marinas when I need supplies. But nautical tourism has grown so intensely that even remote coves are now surrounded by dozens of boats. I try to imagine the 1960s, when only a handful of sailors like Viti\u0107, Murti\u0107, and \u0160oljan wandered the Adriatic. They must have experienced an entirely different sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our tourism might end up devouring itself\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At Sunce we often view tourism through its environmental pressures: concreting, landfilling, resource extraction, sea pollution… How do you see tourism today? Is it more of a blessing or a threat to Dalmatia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any monoculture is dangerous, and tourism especially so. It\u2019s an economy with a low multiplier; nobody gets rich from it. If they did, Seychelles or the Maldives would be Qatar or Bahrain. What\u2019s worse, tourism inflates land prices and wages, eats up space, and reduces the need for educated human capital, making conditions hostile to all other sectors. But we also need to be fair: tourism isn\u2019t to blame for the collapse of Dalmatian industry, for the absence of high tech, or for the decimation of agriculture and fisheries. All that had already fallen apart in the 1990s. Tourism arrived like a savior on a white horse, offering people a substitute livelihood. Without it, Dalmatia would resemble remote parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina or today\u2019s Slavonia. So I\u2019m not inclined to place all the blame on tourism, even though it carries many controversies, including the environmental ones you mention. My problem with tourism \u2013 any tourism, especially ours \u2013 is its unsustainability. Without strict regulation and sustainability, tourism ends up devouring itself. I think we\u2019re already seeing that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"oneciscenje-kaic-more\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is a shift to more sustainable tourism possible \u2013 the kind that won\u2019t consume the space it inhabits? Or is that another utopia that has already failed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other places face similar problems. Barcelona and Venice, for example, are trying to solve them, but with mixed success. What\u2019s encouraging is that the conversation now exists. Ten years ago, laissez-faire logic ruled: the sky is the limit, every new bed is a win. We all remember the rhetoric about \u201canti-investment climates\u201d and \u201cdevelopment blockers.\u201d Today, even some policymakers have adopted the arguments of those so-called development blockers (as in Dubrovnik).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecology, responsibility, and culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Would you describe yourself as environmentally conscious? Or even an environmental activist?<\/strong> Because, at the end of the day, journalism is also a form of social advocacy\/activism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m torn. On one hand, I care about nature and climate: I sort waste, try to reduce my carbon footprint, rarely eat meat, and bike around town. On the other hand, I\u2019m the child of engineers; I was raised by a factory whistle. I appreciate the technological leap of the 20th century and I\u2019m not fond of romanticizing the pre-modern world \u2013 that fantasy of noble natives living in harmony with nature but dying at forty from a cold. I\u2019m glad we have penicillin, vaccines, PVC, cheap clothes, and that I can reach \u010cvrsnica in two hours by car \u2013 a trip that would\u2019ve been impossible in 1900. I\u2019m very much like the characters mocked by Swedish writer Liljestrand in If Everything Disappears<\/em>: the affluent European worried about the environment \u2013 but after a good lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your books often explore moral dilemmas, the idea that we all want rules and order, as long as they don\u2019t apply to us. Do we, as a society, have the strength to take responsibility and where can (and must) that responsibility begin to take shape?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change begins in the non-governmental sector, associations, media, but it must end up in politics. We live in a democracy, and if you want change, you must vote. Those who want the status quo<\/em> will be highly motivated to vote to block change. We\u2019ve just seen that clearly in Split.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our campaign And where do you anchor?<\/a><\/em> warns about the damage free anchoring causes to Posidonia seagrass meadows. In Croatia, paradoxically, anchoring is allowed everywhere unless explicitly prohibited. Does that surprise you, or is it typical of us?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may not like my answer. Anchoring in a bay, except in rare cases, is, to me, a sailor\u2019s natural right, just like drinking from a mountain stream. Imagine a bottled-water company Jana banning you from drinking stream water, and that\u2019s how a blanket anchoring ban in natural bays would feel to me. If Posidonia must be protected, then certain areas should be designated as no-anchor zones, with enforcement. If buoys are preferred, they should be installed, but not via concession models with private operators. I understand ecologists prefer buoys to thousands of anchors tearing up the seabed. But sociologists should also be consulted because every paid buoy field is essentially a privatization of the sea. Just look at Lu\u010dice Bay near Milna, where one of the most beautiful bays on Bra\u010d has turned into a cash machine for a well-connected family. Then I arrive with my six-meter boat and I\u2019m chased away because a 12-meter catamaran pays better. That\u2019s what happens when anchoring is banned in coves.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Marjan and Hajduk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Marjan \u2013<\/strong> hill, forest, park, symbol. What does Marjan mean to you? Is it still a place of hope, or a place that, like the rest of the coast, is losing ground?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cannot overstate how central Marjan is to my life. I\u2019m there every single afternoon, cycling or walking, usually along the quieter trails like the Path from Pile. I swim on the northern side. I also go by boat to Ka\u0161juni and anchor there. Marjan is also a political symbol: a small town (Split was then the size of today\u2019s Bjelovar) managed to create a spectacular public space because citizens recognized the value of the common good and donated land and labor. It\u2019s a monument to the public good and, ironically, because of that sensibility, the next generation inherited a resource they could profit from. Today, an entire micro-economy revolves around Marjan: bike rentals, rickshaws, tourist trains, sunset boat tours, pedal boats, Segways. None of this would exist if early 20th-century landowners behaved like today\u2019s \u201cmerjan\u201d association. They profit today because the ancestors of others gave up profit to build a shared beauty that they are now undermining. I joined the activism to defend Marjan in 2009. We achieved our immediate goal. I later disagreed strongly with some of my fellow activists and felt they betrayed their mission when they tried to strip the city of ownership over Marjan. In my view, it was a betrayal of the ideals of Kolombatovi\u0107, Ra\u010di\u0107, and Girometta. But it\u2019s positive that Marjan returned to the political spotlight and we can see some improvements. Now, with Kerum back in power, we\u2019ll see how much regression awaits. I fear it won\u2019t pass without consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were the \u201cinspector of space,\u201d what would you ban first, and what would you allow?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d ban T2 zones (tourist zones that allow subdivision and sale). I\u2019d introduce a property tax, that alone would slow the construction avalanche. I\u2019d try to ban building infill in already developed neighborhoods, especially those urbanized from the 1950s to the 1990s. I\u2019d remove counties\u2019 authority to grant maritime concessions and give cities and municipalities the right of first refusal for beaches. I\u2019d ban holiday apartments in residential buildings with more than 8\u201310 units. In Split, I\u2019d require caf\u00e9s wanting outdoor seating to operate at least 350 days a year. And I\u2019d bring every school, faculty, or clinic back into the city center because they operate in counter-rhythm: they fill the center in winter when it\u2019s empty, and add little in summer when it\u2019s packed. From November to March, I\u2019d introduce six hours of free parking for residents visiting the center, to revive it and pull life back from shopping malls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hajduk is one of the few collective identities that still unites people here. Can this emotion and energy help drive broader social change, even stronger protection of public space and environment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m one of 56,000 members of the Na\u0161 Hajduk association. I vote in the Supervisory Board elections, I\u2019m a season-ticket holder and a supporter. I regret that parts of the left and activist circles don\u2019t recognize Hajduk\u2019s story as a major victory for the defense of the public good; a case where citizens protected a common good from privatization and political capture. This was Hajduk\u2019s third great \u201cNO\u201d: after saying NO to Mussolini in 1941 and NO to moving to Belgrade in 1945, Hajduk said NO in 2012 to oligarch football and the \u201cBig Boss.\u201d If the club suffers in terms of results because of it, I can live with that. That success could indeed serve as a model for wider societal chang, but one must remember football is unique. Europe tolerated the gutting of healthcare, education, and welfare, yet rose up when the same logic threatened to form a super league. Then Varoufakis joked that Europe had \u201cfound its moral Rubicon\u201d in football. Of course, there\u2019s the other side: fans of a club that joined the Partisans now chant Usta\u0161a slogans and draw swastikas on my street. Looking at a part of the Torcida today, I sometimes think they\u2019d be easier to mobilize for a new genocide than for the protection of public space. But many of us are different and I believe we are the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where do you anchor?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This interview is part of our campaign And where do you anchor?<\/a><\/em>, aimed at raising awareness of the importance of preserving marine biodiversity and promoting sustainable practices at sea. By speaking with those who live with the sea, from the sea, and for the sea, the campaign reminds us how fragile and precious our ecosystems are, and how vital it is to protect seagrass meadows<\/a>, encourage environmentally friendly sailing, and build a community that understands and protects the Adriatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Pavi\u010di\u0107 suspected we might not like his answer on anchoring, we actually agree with him on many points. We are not in favor of privatizing the sea, beaches, or the coastal zone. Quite the opposite \u2013 we advocate fair and effective marine protection, especially of Posidonia meadows, one of the Mediterranean\u2019s most important and threatened habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His key sentence stands out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf Posidonia needs protection, then anchoring should be banned in Posidonia fields, and the ban must be enforced.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that legal protection often fails in practice<\/strong> \u2013 both within nationally protected areas and within Natura 2000 sites, where Posidonia is designated as a priority habitat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In France and Spain, for example, ecological mooring buoys <\/strong>are installed to allow anchoring without damaging the seabed. These buoys are publicly funded and serve solely to protect marine plants \u2013 without commercializing space. The key difference is long-term planning <\/strong>and cooperation with local communities<\/strong>, whereas in Croatia political will for enforcement is often lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But progress in Croatia exists \u2013 small, but present. In Kornati National Park<\/strong>, for example, ecological buoys<\/a> are being installed as part of an EU project, allowing visitors to moor without damaging seagrass meadows.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"posidonija-posidonia-oceanica-saspas-sidreni-sustav-nacionalni-park-kornati\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To ensure these issues are finally taken seriously and communicated to both residents and visitors, we have relaunched And where do you anchor?<\/a><\/em> campaign this year as well. Our goal is to extend the campaign to decision-makers because, as Pavi\u010di\u0107 said: \u201cChange begins in the NGO sector, but must ultimately end in politics.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have an interesting story, advice, or practice to share, if you know someone who might inspire the protection of the Adriatic, or if you simply want to ask a question, contact us at info@sunce-st.org<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of the ‘And where do you anchor?’ campaign, we interviewed a renowned writer and journalist. Find out what Pavi\u010di\u0107 had to say about Dalmatia, tourism, the environment, and society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1242],"tags":[1227,1383,1325],"class_list":["post-32930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sea-protection","tag-and-where-do-you-anchor","tag-jurica-pavicic","tag-sea-protection"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32930"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35123,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930\/revisions\/35123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunce-st.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}