the Bloom association denounces “fishing methods”

Frédéric le Manach denounces the methods of very large fishing boats which damage marine habitats and make them less and less productive.

“On the largest industrial fishing boats, there are relatively few checks on the volume of fish that are caught. For us, it is mainly a question of fishing method”explained Wednesday February 14 on franceinfo Frédéric le Manach, scientific director of the Bloom association, while the annual report from the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) shows that only one in two fish landed in France is fished sustainably, far from the 100% sustainable fishing desired by Europe.

“It is very striking in the Ifremer report not to see a single mention of the way in which the fish is caught, nor by whom”underlines Frédéric le Manach. “These figures are already very bad but are far below reality”according to the Bloom association, which campaigns for the preservation of biodiversity and marine ecosystems.

Frederick the Manach accuses the factory ships, “boats which have catch capacities of several tens of tonnes per hour, or even hundreds of tonnes for the largest boats”. Quantities of fish caught “are so astronomical that no human capacity is able to verify what was caught, what species, what volume”. The fishing methods are therefore “much too effective for the renewal of fish populations”, according to the scientific director of Bloom. These methods “have an impact on marine habitats which make the ocean less and less productive, since it is more and more damaged”.

A lack of political action

Frédéric le Manach denounces the choice made “by the French administration and other countries at European level, to favor these very large boats which are far too efficient to the detriment of humans, to the detriment of marine ecosystems”. He also deplores the fact that “all political decision-makers have supported industrial fishing for years”, like the “fight with agriculture or livestock”. “We have artisans who are not represented politically at all. The only ones who are heard by political decision-makers are the big industrialists.”

Frederick the Manach also did the “statement of failure” of the objective of 100% sustainable fishing in Europe, which had been set for 2020, “a very productive objective”. Four years later, “we are still barely half of the objective that was set. But this objective is already obsolete“. The Bloom association pleads for “go much further” taking “taking into consideration the ecosystems and the humans who fish for fish” and not just “having this productivist objective which dates from the post-war period and which is completely outdated now”.