“Case-by-case” protection: a license to destroy

09 May 2025

For several months, France has been playing a dangerous anti-environmental game by pushing for ‘case-by-case’ ocean protection, a concept invented, promoted, and demanded by industrial fishing lobbies who are fervent defenders of trawling. This harmful approach to protection effectively grants industrial fishing a licence to continue destroying the ocean and its ecosystems, which are already depleted after decades of destructive fishing. By turning its back on scientific recommendations, international objectives, and European law, France is not only acting as a spokesperson for industrial lobbies within its own borders but also promoting this approach internationally. This is how ‘case-by-case’ protection is beginning to infiltrate European institutions, particularly the office of the European Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis.

As the leading European maritime power and the second largest in the world, France is set to host the third United Nations Conference on the Ocean (UNOC) in Nice from 9 to 13 June 2025. However, a few weeks before this international summit, France finds itself at a crossroads. Despite official speeches showcasing 30% protection, less than 0.1% of its metropolitan marine territory actually benefits from genuine protection. The prestigious scientific journal Nature pinpointed France’s hypocrisy regarding marine protection in a scathing editorial in September 2023, and this issue remains relevant today. This is especially concerning given that, rather than taking responsibility for the ongoing climate and environmental catastrophe, France is promoting ‘case-by-case’ protection, much to the dismay of international civil society. This imposture is now being echoed by European Commissioner Costas Kadis[1], who is set to present his ‘European Pact for the Oceans’ in the coming weeks.

The scientific community is revolting against the case-by-case approach

Decades of scientific research have proven the devastating impact of trawling on seabed ecosystems.

However, rather than acting accordingly, the anti-scientific “case-by-case” approach to protection has been openly promoted by industrial fishing lobbies since 2022, and has been supported by Emmanuel Macron and successive French governments ever since. This approach has no other objective than to maintain the status quo, which legally authorizes the passage of destructive trawlers in supposedly protected marine areas, to the detriment of biodiversity, the climate, and artisanal fishers.

In recent weeks, the international scientific community and civil society have revolted against this approach adopted by the European Commissioner. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that there is an urgent need to develop a coherent and effective network of marine protected areas in order to address climate change and the collapse of biodiversity. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global authority on environmental protection, reminds us that a marine protected area cannot be considered protected if industrial extraction activities, including fishing, are carried out there or if industrial infrastructure is developed. This is because trawling cancels out all the social, ecological, and economic benefits of marine protected areas.

All ecosystems are impacted by trawling

Contrary to the suggestion in an IFREMER note supporting trawling and the government that some ecosystems are more resistant and resilient and can ‘withstand trawl passages at moderate frequencies‘, scientific evidence shows that a single trawl destroys 20–50% of benthic invertebrates. For sedimentary habitats, this figure ranges from 4.7% to 26.1%. In France, bottom trawlers are responsible for 90% of seabed destruction caused by fishing. This pressure is equally strong on muddy and sandy seabeds, which, at first glance, appear to be less rich in biodiversity but which harbor a multitude of organisms that are often invisible to the naked eye, buried deep within the sediment, and which are necessary for the functioning of the ecosystem. Trawl doors penetrate deeper into sandy-muddy sediments than into hard sediments, causing greater damage to local fauna.

The ocean is a vast, borderless continuum in which ecosystems are interconnected. The impacts of trawling are not confined to fishing areas and their associated ecosystems. Trawling is extremely non-selective, capturing many species that are destroyed without reason, including endangered species. These are then discarded dead into the ocean. Furthermore, trawling decreases juvenile populations, which are essential for population renewal. Bottom trawlers are responsible for 93.2% of total reported discards in the European Union, and more than 70% of the juveniles caught are taken by trawlers. Finally, by disturbing the seabed, bottom trawling generates a massive cloud of sediments that are resuspended, resulting in colossal long-term impacts on surrounding ecosystems[2].

Granting protection on a ‘case-by-case’ basis means allowing permits to destroy marine ecosystems. It’s as clear and simple as that. With 565 ‘protected’ marine areas in France, this approach betrays the public interest at a time when decisive and urgent measures are needed to save global biodiversity and the climate. This approach will multiply exceptions, which will become the norm, thus diluting responsibilities and delaying decisions that should have been made several decades ago to preserve the ocean’s physical, chemical, and biological integrity in order to protect global biodiversity.

Yet today, the French government is promoting the ‘case-by-case’ approach in defense of trawling and the industrial fishing lobby, contrary to scientific consensus and IUCN recommendations.

The “case-by-case” approach: invented by industrial fishing lobbies and adopted by the French government

The ‘case-by-case’ approach was originally an idea of industrial fishing interests. As early as 2022, the National Committee for Maritime Fisheries and Marine Farming (CNPMEM) was openly promoting it, defending ‘a case-by-case analysis to assess the compatibility between activities, regulations, and conservation objectives’. This approach was soon adopted by Hervé Berville, who was then Secretary of State for the Sea. During a meeting of the Council of the European Union in March 2023, Hervé Berville justified the French government’s opposition to implementing the ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas, which he had announced a few days earlier. He stated that the European Commission’s Ocean Action Plan, which proposes a ban on trawling in MPAs, “creates no distinction between the different fishing techniques used and demands a blanket ban without taking into account the necessity, as required by European rules, to treat each MPA individually with due consideration of its specificities”.

Since then, this logic has been incorporated into official government documents. It states that recognition of a ‘strong protection zone’ can be achieved through a case-by-case analysis of compliance with criteria defined by scientific experts, since ‘the sensitivity of habitats and species to the impact of human activities varies greatly depending on the circumstances, requiring a detailed, documented, and case-by-case approach. For instance, the impact of anchoring on a sandy area differs from that on a seagrass bed.’

However, this approach, presented as ‘fine’ or ‘pragmatic’ and citing examples such as anchoring on sandy areas or posidonia seagrass beds, is in reality a smokescreen designed to obscure the government’s desire to authorize trawling. Two years later, this approach is still being defended by Environment Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher and President Emmanuel Macron. During the international ‘SOS Ocean’ summit on 31 March 2025, Macron announced his intention to strengthen ‘the level of protection in some of our existing marine protected areas’.

However, France’s harmful influence doesn’t stop there, as this approach is now being echoed by European Commissioner Costas Kadis. Unsurprisingly, this announcement was welcomed by those involved in industrial fishing, such as the Regional Committee for Maritime Fisheries and Marine Farming (CRPMEM) of Brittany.

The ‘case-by-case’ protection invented by industrial lobbies and adopted by the French government has no purpose other than to avoid banning trawling and other destructive fishing techniques in areas designated for the conservation of marine heritage. It is a dilatory tactic dressed in rationality, aimed at preserving short-term economic interests even though we are losing ground every day in the fight against climate change and biodiversity collapse.

This retreat of French ambition in terms of marine protection amounts to ecocide. As IFREMER points out in its note from April 2025, ‘certain sensitive habitats, whose protection has been required for decades (Natura 2000), have not actually been properly protected, given the level of degradation observed today for many of them. For these, estimating the impact of fishing, especially trawling, is becoming increasingly difficult as there are few or no intact areas left for comparison.” In other words, IFREMER acknowledges that some areas that should have been protected have been subject to such intense pressure from trawlers that they have been completely destroyed, to the extent that there are no longer any reference points to indicate what successive governments’ inaction has caused us to lose.

As a leading maritime power facing an ongoing ecological catastrophe, France must stop betraying the public interest. A few days before the United Nations Conference, it is time for our government to stop tarnishing our country’s reputation and finally adhere to the international scientific consensus by implementing international and European objectives. This means genuinely and effectively protecting 30% of our waters from industrial activity and infrastructure, with one-third under strict protection.

[1] On Monday 31 March, Costas Kadis, the European Commissioner for Fisheries, accompanied by Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister of the Sea and Fisheries, came to meet with the fishing industry in Lorient. He took the opportunity to announce his support for this case-by-case approach.

[2] A study has shown that the impact of trawling fleets on target and non-target species is not limited to direct and mechanical effects on a specific area due to fish mobility. Researchers have estimated that deep-sea trawl fishing in the north-east Atlantic has led to a decline in fish abundance down to 2,500 metres, despite vessels not fishing beyond 1,500 metres. While the actual fishing area was estimated to be 52,000 km², the impact could extend to an area of up to 142,000 km².

https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/68/2/281/613939