“A strong signal of France to advance this issue at European level”
The amendment banning bottom trawling was adopted this Wednesday, March 9 by the Committee on Sustainable Development of the National Assembly on the occasion of the review of the biodiversity law. This is a step before the plenary, which can reject it.
If the amendment is approved in plenary, it will be “a strong signal of France to advance this issue at European level”, according to the Commission for Sustainable Development.
The Senate has already rejected the ban on bottom trawling
During the first reading of the Biodiversity Bill in the Senate, the Minister of Ecology Ségolène Royal and Republican Senator Somme Jerome Bignon, rapporteur of the Biodiversity Bill, gave speeches committed to the prohibition of bottom trawling.
They called the common sense of elected officials to chart a way forward for protecting the oceans, biodiversity and even fishing. They recalled the economic nonsense of destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling.
The senators, however, rejected the ban on bottom trawling (Article 56), tabled by the Communist group in the Senate, which was adopted by the Planning Commission of Planning and Sustainable Development July 8, 2015.
The minister said it is only a ban on bottom trawling beyond 800 meters but not to a more ambitious deep. industrial fishing professionals now agree to a stop beyond 800 meters but it is possible that their practices are evolving rapidly and that the threshold of 600 meters, advocated by science, is retained in a few years.
