Is the government favoring the interests of industrial fishing to the detriment of dolphin protection? This is what the Bird Protection League (LPO) accuses in a press release published last Saturday announcing its intention to refer the matter to the Council of State. The environmental protection association believes that those in power have neglected the opinion of the French expressed in a public consultation on fishing zones in the Bay of Biscay.
Purely advisory opinion
Despite a very large majority of participants who point out, regarding the decree submitted for consultation, the insufficiency of the measures taken by the public authorities to protect cetaceans, the Minister of the Sea, Hervé Berville, has put in place a new decree far from what the Council of State had demanded, estimates the LPO. The government went “so far as to further relax its draft decree in favor of fishermen while assuming to sacrifice thousands of dolphins each year, a species protected by law”, denounces the association.
“In a true denial of democracy, the government disregards the opinion of the French people scandalized by the massacre of dolphins. By doing so, he irresponsibly encourages confrontation between fishing professionals and nature defenders. We are going to contact the Council of State so that it confirms the imperative to save the dolphins,” reacted the president of the LPO, Allain Bougrain-Dubourg.