French President, Emmanuel Macron, being interviewed at UNOC 2025. Image by France.TV.

Dr. Daniel Pauly calls out France’s double standards on marine protection

French President, Emmanuel Macron, being interviewed at UNOC 2025. Image by France.TV.

French President Emmanuel Macron, being interviewed at UNOC 2025. Image by France.TV.

 

During an interview with French national television, President Emmanuel Macron was confronted with images from David Attenborough’s Ocean documentary, which shows the gigantic nets of bottom trawlers operating in the Mediterranean dropping hundreds of tonnes of all kinds of fishes on a boat after razing the seafloor and everything in their way.

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Small-scale fisheries at sunset in Malaysia.

Leading scientists redefine the notion of ‘sustainability’ to save the ocean

Small-scale fisheries at sunset in Malaysia.

Small-scale fisheries in Malaysia. Photo by Jamie Oliver – WorldFish, Flickr.

A week before Brussels’ Ocean Week and a few months before the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, a group of researchers published the results of an unprecedented scientific effort: they redefine the concept of ‘sustainable fishing’ and propose eleven ‘golden rules’ that radically challenge the flawed notion that currently prevails in fisheries management.

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