Jean-Pierre Boude

Coastal fishing: resource's enhancement and preservation

Abstract The recession in the French fishing industry in the early 1990s led to disastrous human and economic situations. In response to this crisis some groups of commercial fishermen committed themselves to finding a way to enhance their profitability and adapt their production to meet the demand. Their efforts led to the implementation of a quality scheme (Bretagne Qualite Mer, Ligneurs de la Pointe de Bretagne, etc.) to ensure the freshness and quality of their products. The relationship between the enhancement project fishermens incomes and the consequences for resource usage are analysed in the Valpeche research programme (Rapport final du programme Valpeche, 2002, 340 [1]). The fishermens attitude towards the enhancement programme was analysed with surveys of 185 and 60 skippers working along the Channel, from Brest to Boulogne. The surveys were designed to investigate the success of the enhancement programme and its knock on effects. At first, we focus on the question of the relative adaptability of official certification standards for aquatic products, then, we analyse the level of uptake from the industry. We also use a preliminary cost–profit and cost–efficiency approach to interpret the impact that such programmes have on fishermens incomes. Finally, we focus on the impact of such a programme on the level of effort expressed by the fleet, in other words the incentive to fish more or less. The paper ends by considering how a product enhancement programme could be combined with increasing incomes and better management of the resource? In this respect, we rely on the results of the survey that was done among fishermen adhering to the marketing programme “Ligneurs de la Pointe de Bretagne”.