a demonstration in Saint-Malo against the largest trawler in the world to denounce the “looting of the oceans”

The vessel is “capable of catching 400,000 kilos of fish every 24 hours”.

Two environmental defense associations, Bloom and Pleine Mer, called for a demonstration on Thursday February 15 in the morning at the port of Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), in front of the sub-prefecture, against the largest trawler in the world, Annelies Ilena, announces the Bloom association on its website. This trawler, 145 meters long and 24 meters wide, owned by a Dutch company, is operated by the Compagnie des Pêches de Saint-Malo. He “is capable of catching 400,000 kilos of fish every 24 hours, with a storage capacity of 7 million kilos”underlines the Bloom association.

The Saint-Malo Fishing Company invested 15 million euros to install a production plant on board to freeze fish. Its dimensions do not allow it to enter the Saint Malo port, the ship will unload its production in the Netherlands before being brought back by truck to Saint Malo to manufacture 3,000 tonnes of surimi per year. The two associations Bloom and Pleine Mer are therefore calling for action “en masse against gigantism, floating factories and the control of industrialists over the fishing sector”. They denounce a “looting of the oceans” and want to prevent the ship from “grab the quotas” fishing. They heard summoned on Thursday morning a human chain representing the size of the Annelies Ilena net, or 600 meters, in front of the sub-prefecture of Saint-Malo.

An “aberration for the environment and a disaster for coastal jobs”

The associations are not the only ones to take a dim view of this trawler. During questions to the government in the National Assembly on Wednesday, the environmentalist deputy for Isère Jérémie Iordanoff questioned the Secretary of State for the sea and biodiversity Hervé Berville. The elected official from Isère denounces in particular a “an aberration for the environment and a disaster for coastal jobs”. If, on paper, it is a pelagic trawler, that is to say whose net remains between two waters without scraping the bottom, according to the president of the Breton fishing boats, the reality is different. Gwen Pennarun thus explains on the microphone of France Culture that this trawl “arrives at almost 30 meters of vertical opening on depths of 35 to 40 meters”, which means according to him that “the trawl goes from the surface to the bottom and leaves little chance for all species”.

The president of the Brittany region, Loïg Chesnais-Girard, spoke to France Inter about a certain “bitterness” faced with the size of the ship. “This enormous vessel is exactly in line with the global fishing that we see, but it does not comply with the Breton fishing that I defend, with environmental and social rules”, he insists. He refuses that this boat be considered Breton: when “we associate this boat with Brittany, we dirty Brittany”, annoys Loïg Chesnais-Girard.

The Saint-Malo fishing company assures France Inter that the vessel will only fish for blue whiting, a fish which “does not interest artisanal fishing vessels”. Except that the Annelies Ilena still risks depriving other French fishermen of a significant part of the quotas that they already have difficulty sharing, warns David Le Quintrec, fisherman in the Bay of Biscay, on the microphone of France Culture . “We are restricted from our fishing zones with wind farms, now the marine protected areas are being closed to fishing all along the English coastline”, he laments.