On Tuesday 25 March, the organisation Bloom published a study by the Agro Institute and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle to show that it is technically possible to do without destructive fishing methods.
In France, 85% of the fish caught by bottom trawls could be caught using fishing techniques that are much less harmful to marine ecosystems, such as lines, traps and nets.
The study (https://aeur.eu/f/g3n - in French) also calculates the cumulative impact of the passage of around 800 French bottom trawlers, i.e. 670,000 km² destroyed each year.
Bloom has also published a scientific comparison (https://aeur.eu/f/g3o - in French) revealing that the deforestation of marine ecosystems by bottom trawling is 20 to 47 times greater than deforestation on land. More than half of this marine deforestation is taking place in Europe, covering more than 2 million km², almost a quarter of which (400,000 km²) is in its so-called protected marine areas.
“Given these results, the only thing that can be done is to remove the trawl, not keep it. Moving away from trawling is essential for the survival of small-scale inshore fishing”, according to Bloom. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)