La flotte de pêche commerciale bretonne

The annual activity calendars of the 2,000 Breton fishing boats registered in the national POP file (with the exception of seafaring ships: 35 ocean-going tuna boats and 2 ships from Saint-Malo) were reconstituted for the year 1994 through surveys of the owners of these ships. Resorting to this method was necessary to overcome the weak statistical coverage of coastal fishing activity that is practiced within the 12 miles of territorial waters. This collection of information made it possible to build a database that contains, for each boat, the various trades practiced during the year 1994 and, if applicable, the periods of inactivity. By "trade", we mean the putting to use of a fishing vessel in order to catch one or several target species, in a given zone, and during a given period. Using the database yielded the following results: - 96% of the Breton fleet's ships were present all year long in the Breton maritime districts. The remaining 4% left the fleet during the year or arrived. - In 1994, 77% of the boats registered in Brittany were active for 12 months, 14% for between 6 and 12 months and 9% for less than 6 months. - The processing of the information acquired about these fishing zones makes it possible to classify the "scope of action" of the ships in the following way: - the boats that carry on all their activity within the 12 Breton miles are classified as "coastal". - those that carried on more than 75% of their activity within this area are classified as "predominantly coastal". - those that carried on between 25% and 75% of their activity within this area are classified as "mixed". - those that carried on less than 25% of their activity within this area are classified as "predominantly external". - those that carried on all of their activity outside of regional coastal strip are classified as "external". The last two groups correspond to the boats that fish on the open sea but some of them have activity in the coastal zone of other French regions, not to speak of foreign coastal zones in which the French fleets have historical rights. According to this evaluation chart, 72% of Breton boats are "coastal", 5% are "predominantly coastal", 8% are "mixed", 2% are "predominantly external" and 13% are "external". In total, more than 85% of Breton boats work within the 12 miles of coastal strip (exclusively, primarily or regularly), for a workforce of 1,692. Fifteen percent work externally, or, a workforce of 307 boats. The number of ships working exclusively outside of the Breton coastal strip is 265. Out of the 13 Breton districts, 8 have almost exclusively boats that work in the coastal zone. These districts are Saint-Brieuc, Paimpol, Morlaix, Brest, Camaret, Audierne, Auray and Vannes. The boats that work outside of the 12 miles are registered mainly in the districts of Saint-Malo, Douarnenez, Guilvinec, Concarneau and Lorient, where the coastal component is also present. The district of Guilvinec, where one fifth of the Breton fleet is registered, shows the greatest diversity, since all groups are represented. Boats less than 10 meters long, which is 50% of the fleet, are strictly confined to the coastal strip. The 10 to 19 meter range, which represents 40% of the total, includes mostly "coastal", "predominantly coastal" and "mixed" boats. Those of more than 20 meters, save for rare exceptions, work outside of the Breton coastal strip. Boats whose motor power is less than 150kw are almost exclusively "coastal". They represent 60% of the fleet. The 150-300kw range includes the majority of "mixed" boats. The upper power limit of "coastal" boats is 300kw (25 boats). More powerful boats work essentially outside the coastal strip. The age structure of the fleet's constituents broken out according to their scope of action shows quite substantial disparities. It is the coast fleet that is the oldest, with an average age of 18 years, less than 30% of these ships are less than 10 years old. The fleets with the greatest scope of action had an average age of less than 12 years in 1994, following an intense policy of renewing these units starting in 1981, more than 50% of these ships are less than 10 years old. The total theoretical on-board workforce in Brittany is 6,421 sailors. It is, in fact, the regulation workforce that shows in the POP's file. The Guilvinec, Concarneau and Lorient districts have 56% of the sailors. The "coastal" and "predominantly coastal" boats employ 54% of the total theoretical workforce. 85% of the boats that fish in the coastal zone ("coastal", "predominantly coastal" and "mixed") employ 65% of the sailors, while 15% of the boats that fish outside the coastal strip employ 34% of the sailors. The Breton fleet practises on average two trades during the year. But this versatility is quite variable depending upon the ship's scope of action. It is all the greater for the activity performed in the coastal zone. Out of the 307 ships active exclusively or exclusively outside the Breton coastal zone, which constitutes the actual seafaring fleet, 248 (that is, more than 80%) practise the same trade throughout the year, 52 practise two, and only 7 boats practice three trades. In the coastal zone, only 28% of the ships practice only one trade. We can distinguish, looking at Brittany as a whole: - five main trades: _ bottom fish trawlers _ bottom lobster trawlers _ small mesh fish net _ pots for large crustaceans _ scallop dredging Each of them is practiced by about 20% of the fleet (in a non-exclusive way) and the number of months of activity that are devoted to them represents 60% of total activity. - five secondary trades: _ long-line fishing for demersal fish _ large mesh fish net _ line trades _ pots for small crustaceans _ long-line fishing for bottom fish Each of them is practiced by about 11% of the fleet (in a non-exclusive way) and the number of months of activity that are devoted to them represents 24% of total activity. Only the trades exploiting albacore tuna (drift net and pelagic trawler) are practiced exclusively outside the Breton coastal strip. The bottom trawling trades, and the pelagic trawling trades not focused on tuna, are practiced both in the coastal strip and outside of it. The other trades are primarily or exclusively practiced in the Breton coastal strip. According to the criterion "number of months of activity", the trade of bottom trawling for fish is the trade most practiced in Brittany. It represents 16% of total activity. According to the criterion "number of boats", it comes in third with 460 ships concerned. The latter are equally distributed between the Breton coastal strip and the area outside of it. They come, for the most part, from the districts of Guilvinec in Lorient, in southern Brittany, and from the Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo bays in northern Brittany. As far as number of boats (486) the small mesh net trade is the primary trade practiced in Brittany. This trade is almost exclusively practiced in the coastal zone. The study then proposes a dividing up of the Breton fleet, taking into account the main combinations of trades practiced during the year. The fleet is subdivided into small fleets that include boats that adopt similar fishing strategies. This classification of boats by type makes it possible to structure a fleet that, at first blush, seems very heterogeneous because of the diversity of trades practiced and the versatility of the units. This approach is applied to the multivariate analysis of the Breton fishing fleet, the variables used in the analysis are the numbers of months of activity devoted to each of the 31 trades per each of the boats during the year 1994. The analysis allows us to highlight 13 small fleets (they have one or more trades in common, to which they devote a number of months greater than the fleet's average): - purse senners (15 boats), - pelagic trawlers (22 boats), - lobster trawlers (275 boats), - lobster and fish trawlers (88 boats), - bottom fish trawlers (339 boats), - dredgers (292 boats), - small mesh gillneters (260 boats), - large mesh gillneters (133 boats), - crustacean pot boats (228 boats), - bottom fish boulters (76 boats), - demersal fish boulters (185 boats), - pure seaweed harvesters (27 boats), - a small fleet classified as "small trade" (54 boats), As a result of this analysis, it is interesting to place this study on the characteristics of the Breton commercial fishing fleet in the context of its evolution over the last twelve years. From 1983 to 1995, the Breton fleet underwent a reduction of 45% in number of its ships, passing from 3,529 ships to 1,944. This reduction affected the constituents of the fleet in different ways depending on boat length. It is the 25 to 38-meter category that was proportionately the most affected during the period (-66%, or 79 ships), replaced in part by 16-25 meter boats, whose number rose by 2% (5 more ships). More than half of the small fleet of boats of less than 12 meters, or 1,378 boats, disappeared, essentially in its smallest constituent. The overall reduction of motor power is much less (-13%). Whereas it is high for the 25 to 38-meter category (-63%), it is -16% for the less powerful.