Professional fishermen by foot at the Somme Bay and their governance (France)
Introduction and history
The Bay of Somme (Figure 1) forms the first French shell deposit reservoir and contains large areas of marine plants (samphire (glasswort), sea aster and sea sodas). Picking marine plants is an important part of the income of professional fishermen-by-foot at the Somme Bay. This is a traditional activity inseparable from all the professional fishing-by-foot activity in the Bay.
- Figure 1 : Map of the management tools and protection of the Bay of Somme. (Source : Parc naturel marin des Estuaires picards er de la mer d’Opale, décembre 2013)
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The professional fishing-by-foot activity is a gathering activity, often considered as one of the traditional crafts of the coast, which must take place between sunrise and sunset. Professional fishing-by-foot is diverse, depending on which species caught, which fishing sites, equipment and techniques used but it is also very fragile due to the dependence on natural stocks and good physical-chemical appearance of the environment.
- Figure 2. The Somme Bay. Source : Thomas, April 2014.
In the 1980s, the distribution of the shells in the bay had to deal with serious deaths and the industrial sector went through some years of crisis. The Somme Bay had also to cope with a continuing process of siltation since the early twentieth century. The inshore fishing activity then disappeared gradually since the 1980s. Many fishermen changed to fishing by foot, although for the collection of Salicornia (glasswort), little historical indices are available. Salicornia (glasswort) has long been used as a seasoning salt and so significant amounts were going to Paris in the early twentieth century. Nobody knows why or when glasswort had "fallen into oblivion." It was the Dutch who, in the late 1970s, had boosted the production of glasswort and aster in the Somme Bay (Personal communication of a local association, 2014). Faced with the growing enthusiasm for the profession of fisherman-by-foot, access to deposits of shells was framed in the 1980s through the issuance of a fishing authorization by the competent authorities
[1]. A clear basis of the recognition of the profession was set at national level in 2001 by the fishing authorization existing in the Somme Bay. In 2003, fishermen-by-foot have requested CRPMEM Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy for the establishment of fishing licenses and the employment of permanent
guard-jurors (Personal communication CRPMEM, 2014). In 2004, CRPMEM the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy had set up a license for fishing-by-foot on scallops and they employed two guard-jurors
[2].
- ↑ LOARER M., 2013. La pêche à pied professionnelle, Mémento, Ecole d'administration des Affaires Maritimes, Enseignement militaire supérieur du 1er degré, Diplôme technique, 63 p.
- ↑ ACHOIRES S., La pêche professionnelle à pied : bilan et perspectives, CNPMEM, Avril 2004, 25 p.
