Latest news with #AnnaRichards
Telegraph
17-06-2025
- Telegraph
Anti-tourism is spreading across Europe. This is where it will hit next
Over the weekend, southern Europeans took to the streets to protest against mass tourism. It's a familiar scene, but this time, the demonstration was different. For the first time, groups across Spain, Italy and Portugal took to the streets to demonstrate on a single day. It was the biggest coordinated anti-tourism protest in history. The protests spanned Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Malaga, San Sebastián, Lisbon, Granada, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice. A couple of weeks ago, thousands took to the streets across the Canary Islands, too. It feels like it's all coming to a head. But were a documentary to be made chronicling the European fight against 'over-tourism' this would not be the climactic scene. We are, dare I say it, at the very beginning. This is how I see things playing out over the next decade. For once, the French will not join the protest The French like to protest. If there was a nationwide desire to join a trans-continental demonstration, you can bet that they would have done so already. So why haven't they? Anthony Peregrine, Telegraph Travel's France expert, suggests one reason could be the type of tourists that France is dealing with: 'France simply doesn't attract quite so many of the people who, bottles in hand, disturb decent locals at 2.30am. 'There is, of course, poor behaviour on the Riviera but it's mainly by millionaires and they have a way of getting themselves indulged,' he says. Anna Richards, a travel writer based in Lyon, added: 'I think [the lack of anti-tourism protests] is because the French themselves holiday so much within their own country, so the tourism industry is set up to handle large numbers of visitors. 'Also, although there are hotspots that suffer from over-tourism – places like Étretat in Normandy, for example – people don't just flock to one area of France. Its attractions are numerous and well spread out.' I suspect we might see some isolated protests (I gather there's a group in Marseille) but I don't think there will be anything quite on the scale of the Spanish movement, at least any time soon. ...but the Greeks will, eventually Some of the fiercest and loudest of the anti-tourism protests have been those on islands – namely the Canaries and the Balearics – which begs the question: why haven't the Greek islands a little further east in the Mediterranean joined in? The signs of discontent are there. In 2023, during the 'beach towel revolt' residents on the Greek island of Paros marched on Parikia Beach and held up a sign saying 'Reclaim the Beach' in protest against the over-development of their coastline. In the subsequent days, these protests spread across the Greek islands and even into Turkey – a sign, along with 'tourists go home' graffiti cropping up in Athens, that there is a sense of frustration bubbling under the surface. Heidi Fuller-Love, The Telegraph's Greece expert who has her ears close to the ground on these things, says: 'There are rumblings, but since so many people rely on tourism (on a low income), so far there hasn't been much more.' Tourists will become the target Last July, protesters in Barcelona sprayed tourists with water pistols – the first time on record that tourists had been 'assaulted' (to use the term very loosely) in such a way. At last weekend's protests, water pistols were ubiquitous in the city once again. These plastic toys, it is fair to say, are fast becoming the symbol of resistance in Southern Europe. I think this sort of direct action will become much more popular. Last year, a protest group occupied a popular beach in Mallorca and erected signs that said 'Beach Closed'. On another, a sign read 'Beware of Dangerous Jellyfish'. Locals in the Menorcan village of Binibeca Vell resorted to chaining up the access roads to prevent tourists from getting in. There was also the quite comical sight of locals walking back and forth across a zebra crossing in Galicia to stop tourists from accessing a beach. The longer that policymakers ignore the messages of these groups, the more creative their actions will become. British tourists will refuse to boycott Spain Certain news outlets are in the habit of suggesting that British holidaymakers are boycotting popular holiday spots in Spain. Bookings are down, hotels are struggling. That's the narrative. My hunch has been that this is rubbish, and The Telegraph's expert Anna Nicholas (who lives in Sóller, Mallorca) confirms this to be the case, in her home town at least. 'It has been suggested that a boycott of Mallorca is underway, with British holidaymakers in particular said to be steering clear. Nothing could be further from the truth,' she writes. 'The island has never been busier.' Joana Maria Estrany Vallespir, a leading voice in the protest group SOS Residents in Mallorca, tells me: 'What we've seen is that the situation has worsened on every level. We are going to have 20 million visitors this year – the tourist season started earlier than ever before.' The British have been travelling to the Spanish islands and beaches for our holidays for half a century now. So long as package holiday prices remain low, it will take more than a few disgruntled locals with water pistols to break that habit. A word on Albania Where will be the next battleground, looking a little further into the future? I suspect that while discontent will rumble on in Spain, Italy and Portugal (and perhaps Greece, and pockets of France), we will eventually see Albanians join the demo. In 2023, Albania recorded 9.7m visitors, up 58.3 per cent from 6.1m in 2019. The prime minister, Edi Rama, has set the goal of attracting 30m foreign visitors by 2030. If they get anything close to that number, life will change immeasurably in Albania. More traffic, less beach space for locals, high-rise hotels lining the coast (they're already being erected) and – crucially – they can expect to see local landlords cashing in by listing their properties on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. While there will be new jobs created and certain 'winners' in the industry, the population at large will wonder what happened to their beautiful home.
RNZ News
11-06-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Avoid store-bought baby food unless travelling, nutritionist warns
The NHS also said parents shouldn't let babies suck on a pouch and should always feed from a spoon. Photo: 123rf A nutrition expert says parents should only rely on store-bought baby food when they are travelling and it's too difficult to feed fresh food. It comes after the UK's National Health Service (NHS) advised parents not to rely on baby food pouches as everyday meals after six brands failed to meet key nutritional standards. The NHS also said parents shouldn't let babies suck on a pouch and should always feed from a spoon because of the risk of tooth decay. Auckland-based dietician Anna Richards agreed with the advice. "I think we should be relying on pouch foods only for travelling, out-and-abouting when it's absolutely too difficult to feed fresh food." Richards told Morning Report commercially-made baby food was high in sugar and evidence showed once a baby tasted sweet food they preferred it to the bitter taste of vegetables. "We have a lot of issues with children relying on pouch food in that many of them are very high in sugar. "And while they don't have any added sugar, they have a fruit base to them, the majority of them, or very sweet vegetable base." She said parent confidence played a key role in decisions around food. "We've seen, particularly since Covid, parents are time-poor. They're really anxious about giving their babies the best start in life. "And so they're just lapping up a lot of the marketing that's coming around these products." On top of that, eating directly from a pouch limited a baby's ability to learn about food through chewing and play. "In order to meet and explore food, children need to see it. They need to smell it. They need to rub it in their hair and get it on their fingers and their faces. "And when children are eating straight from pouches they're not getting any of that surrounding feeding experience." She said because of that, pouch food would taste "pretty much" the same, and have the same texture. "We find children who have had a heavy reliance on a homogenous texture through the initial stages of their feeding, are children that then want to go onto foods that have a homogenous texture. "So things like chicken nuggets for example, that all look exactly the same, and they all taste exactly the same and the texture's utterly predictable as opposed to home-made food where we get a variety in texture - things look a little bit different." It was also important to give children foods that required some chewing, Richards said. "Chewing is actually really important for satiety and for us getting our messages that we've had enough to eat. "So there's a lot of concern that when we consume a lot of calories or a lot of energy without chewing, that that can then lead to obesity. "So not only in children and pouches but in adults that consume a lot of food in liquid form rather than actually chewing it." Richards said a serving size of fruit was what sits in the palm of a child's hand - it was not a whole piece of fruit. "Some of these children can hoover their way through a couple of pouches so that's the equivalent of five tennis ball pieces of fruit which is way above (more than) what we want children to be having, which is two or three handfuls of fruit in a day and in fact there's a big move for veggies only as first foods." She said it was believed children who were predominantly introduced to vegetables would be far more accepting of them at five-years-old and later in life. "We want children to progress to family food and eat what their family's eating." The Ministry of Health's advice when buying baby food is: The NHS also advised not giving snacks to baby's under the age of 12 months. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
South China Morning Post
24-03-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
World Cup winner hails women's rugby advances, before leading Kiwis in Tradition HKFC 10s
Exactly 25 years to the day after she won a stand-alone Hong Kong Sevens tournament with New Zealand, Anna Richards hailed the growth of women's rugby since her 2010 retirement. Advertisement Four-times World Cup winner Richards, who coached Hong Kong's women's sevens team for four years until 2017, is back in the city to lead RKS New Zealand Legends in this week's Tradition HKFC 10s. The 10s introduced a women's competition in 2023, the same year the elite HSBC SVNS Series began staging its men's and women's tournaments alongside each other. 'Women's rugby is growing every year and the media attention it's garnering is huge,' Richards said. 'The media giving us equal footing is really important, it wasn't the case when I played. 'Women are receiving more TV coverage and sponsorship deals, which is indicative of the level of rugby they are playing … and it's getting better every year. It's great to see the girls being paid and on full contracts, and getting the attention they deserve.' Teams from all over the world will be competing in the men's and women's events at the 10s. Photo: Edmond So The 10s will take place on Wednesday and Thursday at Hong Kong Football Club. The men's competition features 12 teams, although not Samoa, who withdrew because of 'unforeseen circumstances including player injuries and an inability to secure flights'.
