On the eve of World Ocean Day, I carry two bad news. The first is that France, a second world maritime power, has just proven by a terrible decree that it has in no way intended to protect its marine territory. And this despite the urgency to restore the health of an ocean which is only the shadow of itself when it is a strategic ally in the fight against global warming, absorbing more than a quarter of Our CO2 emissions . sub>
The second is that no, Emmanuel Macron did not make his aggiornamento “green” and he will not. While, with one hand, the president prepared his advocacy of Marseille of April 16 at the address of the green electorate, borrowing from Jean-Luc Mélenchon his concept of “ecological planning”, on the other, he orchestrated the Signature, on April 12, of a shameful decree putting in pieces the very concept of “protected marine area”, making inoperative all the promises he had made on this subject.
Let us recall that, from 2019 to 2022, Emmanuel Macron hammered that France would protect 30 % of its waters, including 10 % “in full naturalness” or “strong protection”. Announcements celebrated for their ambition and unambiguous: the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had already clarified that a marine area could not be called “protected” if industrial activities (including fishing) were conducted there. According to international definitions, the president’s commitment to protect 30 % of our marine territory therefore corresponded to the categorical ban on industrial extractions and installations. This also meant that the 10 % “strong protection” promised by Emmanuel Macron automatically corresponded to the higher degree of protection: full, strict protection, which Anglo-Saxons call “no-take zones”.
Leveling from below
These “strong” protective areas do not allow any human activity, not even the samples of small craft fishing, and are the most effective in restoring the ocean. Scientists have quantified the spectacular recovery of the marine environment when anthropic pressure ceased: the biomass of the fish is 670 % greater than in unprotected waters! However, today, France protects, according to a study by CNRS, only 0.09 % of its Mediterranean facade and 0.005 % of its facade Atlantic, Manche and North Sea!
Unfortunately, protecting less than 1 % of the ocean is still too high for manufacturers, and Emmanuel Macron has chosen to take their side rather than that of science and citizens lessen, by this decree of April 12, “strong protection” criteria.
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