Tuesday, May 3, the MEPs rejected the proposal of the Greens requesting the ban on towing a trawl on the funds of classified areas, little preserved in fact.
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The fishermen will be able to continue to shoot their chals on the funds of the officially protected marine areas of the European Union. Tuesday, May 3, during a plenary vote in the Parliament in Strasbourg, 319 deputies voted against the proposal of the deputy Caroline Roose (European free alliance) which requires the prohibition of this technique “in all marine areas protected [AMP] “; 280 MEP voted for and 35 abstained. Non -selective and harmful for herbaria and other marine habitats, this technique is controversial. NGOs frequently devote accusing reports. A petition bearing 150,000 signatures and claiming its ban was given in December 2021 to the European Commission.
In 2020, the latter announced in its biodiversity strategy its ambition to protect 30 % of land and seas by 2030 – like the French government by the way -, of which at least a third party in a “strict” way in order to to stop the decline of species. On the planet level, the objective is also on the program of the next global conference on the subject, scheduled by the end of the year. The parliamentarians had the opportunity to work to start putting it in application in European protected marine areas. This is not what they decided.
Contrary to what their names might suggest, AMPs are not currently regulated as spaces to be preserved from any form of human activity harmful for ecosystems. In fact, they are generally managed with the idea of having all kinds of uses coexist: transport, tourism, nautical activities, and of course fishing.
“protected” but without restrictions
The federation France Nature Environnement thus calculated that in the Gulf of Gascogne, The boats that practice destructive techniques (such as trawling, but also the use of very large nets Size) operated, in 2018 for example, for more than 174,000 hours in protected areas, compared to 235,000 hours outside these areas. In 2021, 33.7 % of French waters were classified, but 12.5 % of them imposed no more rules inside the AMP than in the AMP, relates a study by researcher Joachim Claudet (CNRS -PSL Paris University). And only 1.6 % were protected in the strict sense.
It is these hearts of marine parks or natural reserves there that the macronist MEP Pierre Karleskind (Renew Europe), which chairs the fishing commission in the European Parliament, wishes to limit a possible exemption from underfund. “While the prohibition generally applies in these spaces, even if there is no uniform rule in the European Union”, retorts Caroline Roose. The elected officials of the European People’s Party (PPE) did not want the latter’s proposal either. They made sure that her request to prohibit background trawling in all AMPs is separated from the initiative report devoted to the blue economy, in which she had slipped. This text by the social democratic deputy Isabel Carvalhais, focused on the protection of the ocean, the sailors, but also of biodiversity, was adopted by the Fishing Commission in March and plenary on May 3.
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