Floating carpet of dead fish highlights France’s ‘lax’ attitude about overfishing

Issued on: 05/02/2022 – 18:02Modified: 05/02/2022 – 18:14

From a distance, it looks like a long white streak of sea foam. At close range, the streak is comprised of the silvery bodies of some 100,000 dead fish, dumped back into the sea by Dutch-owned trawler FV Margiris, the world’s second-biggest fishing vessel. Macabre images of this carpet of dead fish went viral on social media when Sea Shepherd posted them on Thursday, as part of their Operation Ocean Killers in the Bay of Biscay on France’s Atlantic coast. 

Condemning the dumping as a “pillaging” of the sea, the NGO, which is dedicated to the protection of marine ecosystems, demanded answers from the French Minister of the Sea Annick Girardin. Girardin announced on Friday that she had asked for an administrative investigation to be opened into the incident. 

The incident, which took place early on Thursday morning, was caused by a rupture in the trawler’s net, said fishing industry group the European Pelagic Freezer-Trawlers Association (PFA), representing the owner of the Margiris. In a statement, PFA described it as an “accident” and a “very rare occurrence”. Sea Shepherd disputes this version of events, saying it is far from rare and simply an illegal discharge of more than 100,000 unwanted fish. The NGO hopes that the images will help to raise awareness among French citizens of the disastrous consequences of overfishing.  

“This ship is used to this kind of ‘fishing accident’. It has already been involved in discarding of unwanted catches,” said Lamya Essemlali, the chairperson of Sea Shepherd France, to FRANCE 24. “What’s more, we’ve already filmed other ships that also release thousands of dead fish in their wake. It is therefore an ‘accident’ that keeps happening a lot on these ships,” she said. 

French fishermen ‘think that the ocean belongs to them’

The Sea Shepherd France team had watched the ship arrive in the Bay of Biscay, Essemlali said. “We spotted the Margiris arriving on MarineTraffic.com, so we left the port of La Rochelle on Wednesday evening and headed straight towards it.” Their aim was to film the fishing operation, “to show the general public what industrial fishing by giant trawlers looks like”. 

Nicknamed “the monster” by British media, the 6,200-tonne, 143-metre long Margiris was already the subject of a massive outcry in Australia, where it was banned after NGOs mobilised public opinion. 

In 2019, UK environmentalists mounted a protest against its presence in British waters. “They did not succeed in banning it, because the United Kingdom was still part of the European Union at the time and did not have the room for manoeuvre that Australia had,” said Essemlali, referring to a common fisheries policy that holds decisions must be taken at the European level. 

However, France’s fishing policies are anomalous, Essemlali said. “It is not Europe that prevents France from taking the right measures, but rather France that puts the brakes on every time Europe wants to strengthen controls.” This situation is explained by a feeling of omnipotence on the part of French fishermen who, Essemlali said, “think that the ocean belongs to them”. 

Mandatory onboard cameras 

The day after Sea Shepherd released its photographs of the dead fish on social media, Girardin reacted with a tweet. “These images are certainly shocking,” she wrote. 

“The minister seems surprised to see these images, but unfortunately France has a very long history of deficiencies in fisheries control,” said Essemlali, citing tens of thousands of euros in fines for “lax” fisheries control and a formal notice from the European Commission last June. 

“It’s not a rare occurrence,” said Essemlali. “We are quite surprised to see how eagerly the minister endorses and validates the Margiris’ version of the accident.” 

Sea Shepherd has taken pains to highlight that overfishing is the number one threat to the survival of the ocean, and this is the subject of a scientific consensus. “This means that there is a responsibility and a duty of transparency on the part of fishermen,” said Essemlali. 

Indeed, for the NGO, the heart of the problem remains the opacity of what happens at sea. “The sea is a zone of impunity,” said Essemlali. “Our regulations in France are not sufficient to prevent the destruction of the marine ecosystem and effectively protect endangered species. Moreover, these regulations are not respected and controlled.” 

This is why Sea Shepherd is calling for mandatory onboard cameras to identify and keep the most destructive fishing vessels berthed in port. They want those who sail the high seas “to be better controlled, to be accountable and to ensure that we are not held to the sole version of the shipowners”. 

Sea Shepherd’s action was also intended to shine a spotlight on the reality of overfishing, something about which French citizens are often unaware, Essemlali said. “When you are a French citizen, you are a member of a nation that has a leading role to play in managing the sea,” she told FRANCE 24.  

France has the largest coastline in Europe, it is the second largest maritime power in the world and it is the only country to be present on all the world’s oceans. “The defence of the ocean should be a major national cause. However, the lines will only move at the political level if public opinion takes hold of this subject.” 

Coming a few days before the opening of the One Ocean Summit, a summit organised at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, Sea Shepherd hopes that the disaster it has unveiled will have had enough of an impact on society to help speed up political decision-making.

This article was translated from the original in French.