European Parliament calls for trawl fishing to be restricted but not banned in marine protected areas
"In Guilvinec, 90% of fishing boats would be docked because quite simply as soon as you leave Guilvinec, you are in marine protected areas," says Macronist MP Pierre Karleskind.
AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
The European Parliament voted Tuesday, May 3 in Strasbourg in favor of an initiative report on the “sustainable blue economy” devoted to the ocean.
This non-binding text addresses the issue of fishing within the European Union and in particular that of trawl fishing, which scrapes the seabed in protected marine areas.
Environmental associations and ecologists hoped to see it totally banned because of its harmful action on ecosystems, but an amendment introduced by the Renew group, macronist, was voted and approved.
And according to its detractors, this amendment considerably reduces the scope of the text and the message sent to the European Commission.
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With our correspondent in Strasbourg,
Jean-Jacques Héry
Initially, the report advocated a total ban on bottom trawling in EU marine protected areas, but before the vote, Macronist MP Pierre Karleskind and his Renew parliamentary group proposed an amendment that would limit this ban to a perimeter smaller in only part of the marine protected areas, the marine areas whose ecosystem is considered the most threatened by scientists.
Pierre Karleskind is the author of the controversial amendment and finally voted on Tuesday afternoon.
“It's pragmatic ecology,
he says,
there is a moment when we look at where it is actually the most relevant.
Marine protected areas represent 45% of French mainland waters, trawling accounts for 80% of inputs into fishing ports, for example at Guilvinec 90% of fishing boats would be docked simply because as soon as you get out of Guilvinec you are in marine protected areas.
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Biodiversity in the high seas: will states manage to create marine protected areas?
Claire Nouvian, founder of the NGO Bloom, had launched a campaign last week to denounce the initiative of the Renew group:
"It is the typical bad faith of all these public authorities which have accompanied the fishing sector towards its ecological, economic and social disaster.
The amendment of the Republic En Marche is a regressive, dangerous, pro-lobby amendment, we are appalled.
»
Remember that this text is an initiative report without legislative obligations, it is a signal sent to the European Commission which will then write the law taking it more or less into account.
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European Union
Agriculture and Fishing
Environment
France