French Association for the Promotion of the Responsible Eel Brand
To set up a ‘Responsible Eel’ collective brand to contribute to the social and economic sustainability of this small-scale fishing activity, which is a source of local fish production of great diversity and quality.
First observation:
This activity is denigrated by many so-called environmental associations and is often presented as an illegal and destructive activity that shamelessly hunts down ‘white gold’ (‘glass eel’). Hence the need to set the facts straight, which is what AFPMAR is endeavouring to do, using substantiated arguments based on official, validated technical and scientific documents.
Second observation:
Given the sometimes irreversible degradation of the aquatic habitats necessary for the species to survive, the knowledge and know-how of professional fishers will be essential to restoring this resource. Hence the need to preserve this technical heritage and no longer consider the reduction in the number of professional fishers as one of the key elements of a management plan, but rather as a hindrance to the restoration of our aquatic ecosystems.
Third observation:
The transfer of glass eels from the central zone of the distribution area to peripheral zones less irrigated by glass eel or small eel flows is a long-standing activity and one of the key elements of many eel restoration plan defined by Regulation UE 1100/2007. It is important to intensify this activity while developing research to optimise the survival of transferred individuals in the wild.
Fourth observation:
The main polluters and destructors of the environment are not the ones who pay. The only people who have paid the price for environmental degradation are the professional fishermen who depend directly on the productivity of the environment. Yet their activity is essential to the survival of the eel industry in Europe, whose farming and processing have become well structured following the introduction of EU regulation 1100/2007. It is therefore important to re-establish the balance within this sector by allowing the fishing industry to have a more open and dynamic market in terms of restocking and to make the many uses that spend inconsiderately on goods and services of environment, pay, which is not the case at present.
The European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) is classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
In 2019, the IUCN reported that “Nine years after the first assessment, the situation of the species remains worrying”. According to the IUCN, “the destruction and degradation of natural environments were the main causes of species decline, particularly for diadromous migratory fish species. The degradation of their habitats and dams compromise their migratory travel to breeding grounds”.
This observation is widely shared by professional sea and river fishermen who have constantly denounced the multiple degradation of the species’ habitats. The destruction of wetlands, vegetated banks, the numerous obstacles to upstream and downstream migration, the damming of estuaries to protect against flooding, the land drainage, the increasingly intense use of water resources for urban, tourist and industrial needs, the organic, biological and chemical pollution have all had a great effet and impact on a species that was considered in France by recreational fishing managers as a pest in salmonid waters.
However, it is clear that managers at national and European levels have often considered professional fishing as an adjustment variable for the faults of other actors who indiscriminately use water as an unlimited resource and consider aquatic environments as worthless areas to be conquered.
Common sense tells us, however, that you don’t “sow a field of waste” and that by reducing aquatic habitats as our society has done, there is little hope of conserving the resources they contain. Let’s not fool ourselves: eradicating fishing will not solve the physical and chemical damages to the environment, nor restore the wetlands.
The eel tree, from the INDICANG programme (eel colonisation indicators in the central part of its colonisation area), is a very good illustration of the functioning of the eel population at the scale of its distribution area. Each leaf of the tree represents a production unit and the size of the foliage represents the size of the population. It is easy to understand that by stripping the leaves from the tree and pruning its branches, its vigour is reduced.