In its fight to save the migratory fish that still circulate along the French coasts (salmon, shad, lamprey, eel, which are decreasing increasingly rapidly), the association Defense of Aquatic Environments (DMA) has just won a new round against the administrative court. from Pau. On October 28, the judges annulled the specifications signed by the prefects of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques and the Landes that were to regulate the fishing conditions for these species at the mouth of the Adour until 2027.
Always at the request of the DMA, the administrative court of Bordeaux did the same on May 16: it annulled the prefectural decree that allowed the capture of Atlantic salmon and tarpon in the Gironde estuary. As for the lamprey, fishing is completely prohibited from 2023, given its alarming state of conservation. This decision, adopted in the name of the precautionary principle, was also obtained following a complaint from fifteen associations.
During their long journeys, amphihaline fish – which come from the sea and try to swim upstream to reproduce or, conversely, run downstream to spawn in the ocean – face many challenges and must tolerate warming and cooling water quality. deteriorates. However, upon reaching the mouth of the French rivers, they come face to face with an additional formidable obstacle: the drift net. This particularly effective fishing gear comes in the form of a rectangle that can measure up to 180 meters long and 6 meters wide. It is equipped with floats, which allows it to block the water course below the surface, precisely at the height where the fish circulate, while it sways with the tidal current.
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Only professionals are allowed to use a drift net. Currently there are seventeen that exploit it in the maritime part of the Adour, while about thirty, generally part-time, do so about twenty kilometers upstream. Reduction in staff numbers, but not without impact. “Thus equipped, in his 6 or 7 meter boat, a single man can carry out his fishing operation in twenty or forty minutes”says Philippe García, president of DMA.
The activist, who has been multiplying the procedures for five years, is delighted to see that for the first time the administrative court of Pau has taken into account the particular character of the estuary classified Natura 2000 and, therefore, included in the Habitats directive of the European Union . Union. The protection of this “special area of conservation” for fauna and flora implies at least carrying out an evaluation of the impacts of a practice “probably significantly affected” shad and salmon, say the judges.
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