2024-02-28 07:00:00
“We are in shock, distraught. What does DMA’s extremism mean and hide? [l’association Défense des milieux aquatiques, NDLR]. Do they want to destroy us, so that there are no more professional fishermen? What will become of our businesses? Our lives ? Our families ? » says Sabine Durand, general secretary of the Approved Association of Professional Freshwater Fishermen of Gironde (Aapped 33), between anger and despair.
“We are in shock, distraught. What does DMA’s extremism mean and hide? [l’association Défense des milieux aquatiques, NDLR]. Do they want to destroy us, so that there are no more professional fishermen? What will become of our businesses? Our lives ? Our families ? » says Sabine Durand, general secretary of the Approved Association of Professional Freshwater Fishermen of Gironde (Aapped 33), between anger and despair.
While lamprey fishing has been suspended in Gironde since last April, following a judgment from the Bordeaux administrative court requested by a first appeal from the DMA association, this is, in fact, a new blow for professional fishermen. . In a judgment of Monday February 26, the court once once more ruled in favor of DMA which, this time supported by the Departmental Association of amateur fishermen with gear and nets on public waters (Adapaef 33), had filed a new appeal once morest the Gironde Dordogne interprefectural decree of January 22. The judge thus ordered his suspension.
A decree, let us remember, presented as having a “scientific purpose” and which allows fishing for lampreys with the aim of relocating them in the Ciron, near Villandraut (an operation took place on Thursday February 15) or upstream of the Bergerac dams. The stated objective is to protect the species by keeping it away from its predator, the catfish, and to allow them to reproduce in complete peace and reclaim the spawning grounds upstream.
Divergent visions
Philippe Garcia, the president of DMA, has a completely different vision and is pleased that the court “did not allow itself to be impressed by fallacious arguments in the interest of commercial fishing”. In his argument, the judge considers that driftnet fishing to catch lampreys will have an impact on the species, “but also on that of Atlantic salmon, large shad and sturgeon, which are fish whose morphological characteristics will not allow them to escape the meshes.” On the other hand, he emphasizes, “it has not been established that a translocation operation of this scale will have a beneficial impact for the species”.
The judge also highlights the absence of an assessment of Natura 2000 impacts
So many elements that Philippe Garcia shares and carries. Which considers that the project is biased, “because it does not take into account the spawning grounds downstream where lampreys are very present”. Also rejecting out of hand the accusation that the catfish is the great predator of the lamprey and endangering its survival. “In 2022, fishermen caught 23,000 lampreys, it’s good that there are some left, while it is said that catfish take 80%. » And to treat as bogus the studies carried out by the Universities of Nantes and Toulouse going in this direction. While Sabine Durand, on the contrary, relies on it to denounce the danger of catfish, “which we have been denouncing since the 1990s”.
The judge also highlights the absence of an assessment of the Natura 2000 impacts¸, in other words the positive or negative consequences of the prefectural decree, “this is already what the judge said during the first judgment. It’s up to the State to do that,” laments Sabine Durand. Faced with this judgment, the fishermen requested an emergency meeting with the sub-prefect of Libourne, “to find out the State’s reaction. But, for the moment, we have no answer.”
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