In one of France's most important scallop and crab ports, aboard a trawler in Saint-Malo, Laurent Mevel is repairing his net. “We really want to protect the ocean,” the 60-year-old Fisher said. “But we have staff, we have staff.”
“If you stop fishing, that fish will come from Scotland Ireland. Now the fish you buy from the store is on the plane. The cost is lower.”
As long as they can remember, wealthy families have been fishing in the waters near Brittany. Next to him, Mayville's father, Emile, 83, was also messing with nylons on the boat. Mevel's 29-year-old son Clément is busy. The family trawled the fish, cuttlefish and “lots of scallops”.
But it will be over soon, Mel said, claiming environmental measures are slowly killing the fishing industry. “We have to make peanuts,” he said. “We're going to be a legacy asset. That's not what we want; we just want to work.”
Our international reputation is at stake
An open letter to Macron
This weekend, world leaders will gather in Nice on the south coast of France to hold a UN summit in response to what they call the “global emergency” facing the world. The United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), co-chaired by Costa Rica and France, expects 70 heads of state to participate, aiming to establish global unity with issues such as plastic pollution, industrial fishing and deep-sea mining, to stop the decline of the marine environment.
However, the meeting will also draw attention to the difficult plight of its owner, Emmanuel Macron. The French president has high ambitions for the summit, including 60 countries ratifying the High Ocean Treaty to protect the biodiversity of international waters and agreeing in 2023.
This is enough to achieve the treaty, which is crucial to reaching a globally consistent biodiversity goal, namely, to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030, known as “30×30.”
However, in waters closer to home, Macron faces some serious opposition to his role as an environmentalist. This comes from many voices in the powerful fishing industry that have been against the impact of limiting the bottom trawls in the coastal areas of France, a destructive method of fishing. Their collective voice is not very small – due to its overseas territory, France has the second largest maritime region in the world after the United States.
Critics say that as a result, France is doing less than others than banning trawling in “protected” areas to protect its seabed and biodiversity. France claims that France protects 33% of the ocean through a specially designed marine reserve (MPA), but in fact 98% allow destructive activities and only 0.03% are strictly protected.
Maybe the port will be blocked; maybe the fishermen may go further – and cause trouble in the next election
Gauthier Carle, Ocean and Climate Platform
A public letter from Macron, a 60 scientist and environmental expert published in March, made an adverse comparison between UNOC co-hosts and countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden and Greece, which are taking action to prohibit bottom line in protected areas. “Our international credibility is at risk,” they warned.
The EU goes further than the 30×30 target and recommends protecting 10% of European coastal and marine waters under a “strict protection” regime. Environmentalists say France does not meet the recommendation and cannot formally ban industrial activities, bar mining and mineral extraction.
Jean-Pierre Gattuso, research director of the French National Center for Scientific Research, believes that France is a leader in marine science and conservation. But the bottom trawling performed in MPA is the “black spot” of the U.S. record, he said.
“Obviously, it's not appropriate to do a bottom trawl in a marine reserve,” he said. “The video of David Attenborough's film Ocean shows how destructive it is. It's a hot topic because of the conflict.”
Macron, known by many environmentalists as a warning about deep-sea mining in Unoc, Lisbon in 2022, said a legal framework needs to be developed to prevent this and prevent new activities from “hazardous to these ecosystems”.
Later that year, at the police climate summit in Egypt, he expressed opposition to deep-sea mining permits. The French government is working to build an international alliance to demand a ban on the ban. Supporters of his stance hope he will announce bold moves again this year.
If we go in this direction, say goodbye to every French fisherman
Olivier Leprêtre
Tobias Troll, director of marine policy for the Environmental Alliance for Marine Risk, said: “The French and Macron courts have a focus through spreading the ocean, but we need to take action when protecting the MPA or regulating the ecosystem of fishing.
“Based on international standards, in mainland France, there is no benefit from high protection even by 0.03%.”
Gauthier Carle, deputy director of the Ocean and Climate Platform, a network of more than 100 research institutions, museums and NGOs, believes Macron has been hampered by concerns about potential political impacts.
“The French government is worried that the announcement of strong measures will annoy fishermen. Maybe the port will be blocked; maybe the fishermen may go further, maybe it may cause trouble in the next election,” he said.
“I hope Macron will speak transformative and bold words in the crisis of biodiversity and climate change.”
In response to criticism of the MPA in French waters, Elicia announced that it would make a “important announcement” on the issue at the United Nations Ocean Conference.
“In some ways, we agree with the NGOs and the scientific community, it's about the need to strengthen the level of conservation in certain marine protected areas – but we're not just focusing on the bottom line,” the president's office said.
Related: Research says
Back in Saint-Malo, tensions are high. The waters close to the city are home to about 500 dolphins, declared MPA. Campaign groups such as Bloom, a marine environment charity, have been following these and other waters they claim, and are therefore not protected as they deserve.
Bloom has released a red list of nearly 4,000 French trawlers, which says it says fish in protected waters and claims that industrial bottom catch accounts for 27% of overdeveloped fish populations.
“We are on the list of famous 4,000 ships. Why?” Mayville said. “They are idiots.”
He pointed out the ship next to the ship, which is not on the list because it is below the 12-meter-long threshold of 10 cm, and Bloom regards trawlers as industrial. “He did the same thing as me,” Mayville said. “We do the same job, exactly the same.”
Mevel says that trawling is harmless if done correctly. “We will not destroy anything,” he said. “The mesh lets the little fish pass.”
Olivier Leprêtre, chairman of the Hauts-de-France Regional Fisheries Commission, who covers ports such as Calais and Boulogne, said the claim about the bottom trawl is “the stigma of certain charities that have led to this discourse that it is necessary to ban trawls.
“The trawling has been done since dawn of time. There are still fish…fishers have been improving their fishing skills.
He warned: “If we go in this direction, it will be a farewell to every French fisherman.”
