Sea Shepherd and France Nature Environment announce that they will file recourse against the government, accused of not taking the necessary steps to preserve this protected species.
Le Monde with AFP
Two NGOs, Sea Shepherd and France Nature Environnement (FNE), announce that they will table, Monday, December 6, appeals before the Council of State against the Government, accused of not taking the necessary measures to preserve the Dolphins, a protected species, threatened by some fishing techniques. FNE and Sea Shepherd will each submit a suspension and a remedy on the merits, they reported to the France-Press agency (AFP).
In July 2020, the European Commission opened an infringement procedure against France, judging that the country does not fulfill its obligations to this protected species. She returned a letter to this effect in early October.
Every winter, hundreds of cetacean corpses fail on the French Atlantic coast. According to the Pelazis Scientific Observatory, accidental catch by fishing gear are one of the main causes of mortality.
For NGOs, the plan presented by the government in May 2021 to lower these catches remains insufficient. In October, FNE asked the Ministry of the Sea “the closure for three months during each winter and one month for each summer fisheries concerned by the catacean catches”.
Accidental catch
Based on international board’s recommendations for the exploration of the sea (ICES), a scientific body that monitors North Atlantic ecosystems, it also asks to install cameras on boats and enforcing the ‘obligation to declare the accidental catch of dolphins. The association indicates that it does not receive a department’s response.
It therefore seizes the Council of State via “an action in excess of power, rely on the merits to cancel the implicit decision of rejection” of the department, explained to AFP Jérôme Graefe, lawyer for FNE.
The association calls “an emergency measure specifically for this winter period 2021-2022”, from January 15 to March 15, when the majority of the stalls takes place. “This closure can be financed” by European funds and the stimulus plan, “it is an ecologically responsible and economically acceptable measure,” says the FNE.
FNE, who had already formed a recourse to the Council of State in February, decided to bring the case again before the Justice because “the State does not take the whole means in its possession to try to try to improve things, “Judge Elodie Martinie-Cousty, of the association.
Sea Shepherd, for his part, request “to the state council of immediate concrete measures,” said Marion Crete, lawyer for the NGO.