Does a fishing boat's size decide whether it fishes sustainably? A new peer-reviewed paper says no — and it has become ammunition in Europe's brewing fight over who gets to fish.
Researchers Frank Asche and Martin Smith, in a study titled "Large and small can be beautiful in fisheries and aquaculture," reviewed three decades of literature and found no evidence that small vessels are inherently greener than large ones. What matters, they argue, is management: sound governance keeps stocks healthy at any scale, and poor governance depletes them at any scale.
The industrial fleet welcomed the conclusion. "Sustainability is determined by how fisheries are managed, not by the size of the vessel," said Javier Garat, president of Europêche, which represents the bloc's fishing companies. "Europe needs fisheries policies based on science rather than perceptions," he added, as Brussels weighs reopening the Common Fisheries Policy and drafting an Ocean Act.
Small-scale fishers and conservationists draw the opposite lesson, warning the reform could concentrate access in the largest operators' hands.
Oceana wants the first 12 nautical miles of EU coastal waters reserved for low-impact fleets and has pressed Fisheries Commissioner Costas Kadis to enshrine that in the Ocean Act. "Low-impact fishermen play a crucial role in strengthening coastal communities, generating income, providing local catches and maintaining traditional practices," said Vanya Vulperhorst, who runs Oceana's European campaigns.
On France's Brittany coast, veteran line fisherman Gwen Pennarun frames it as a question of ownership. "I have been fishing for sea bass off the coast of Brittany for nearly 40 years," he said. "This profession demands patience, knowledge of ecosystems and a sense of responsibility." His fear is the quota system, which hands rights largely on the basis of past catch volumes. "Fisheries resources, which should remain a common good, are in the process of being privatised," he said. Through the "Make Fishing Fair" campaign he and other small operators want a fairer allocation: "Our request is simple: every fisher should be able to make a decent living from their trade."
Most sides accept the paper's core point — size alone is not the issue. They split on what to do about it. Europêche reads it as a reason to stop favouring small boats in policy; small-scale advocates read the coming reforms as a route to an industrialised, "privatised" sea. With conservation groups urging Brussels to enforce existing rules rather than rewrite them, the definition of "sustainable" that prevails will decide who fishes Europe's waters for years to come.