Diversification of Fisheries Activities and Construction of Sustainability

While French marine fisheries must cope with increasing difficulties, the concept of\ud multifunctionality of fisheries (as previously observed in agriculture) is emerging\ud through a diversification of activities. Indeed, fishers resort to alternatives in order to\ud sustain their activity by calling on new ways to interact with environment, institutional\ud players, scientists, local stakeholders and customers in addition to their usual production\ud activity. They develop alternatives based on the unit of production (vessels and\ud products), by altering relations among fishers and the wider context in which they are\ud embedded – the coastal zone. When considered alone, each new activity looks like an\ud individual solution of resistance to a jeopardizing situation. When considered at a whole\ud fishery sector, this strategy may contribute to achieve sustainability.\ud In this paper, we question how “multifunctionality in agriculture may be applied to\ud fisheries by focusing on diversification activities”. The analysis comes from results\ud from a project conducted in 2008 in Brittany (France) about fishers and their\ud diversification activities. The application of the “agricultural diversification approach”\ud on fisheries raises many questions on acceptability by fishers, new constraints and\ud opportunities. These questions are partially addressed in this paper by looking at a\ud specific French case study. By screening the on-going diversification activities, we\ud develop an ad-hoc classification. Then, we identify opportunities of diversification\ud depending on fishers’ acceptability. Finally, we analyse how different diversification\ud strategies can enhance resilience of small-scale fisheries and make them more\ud sustainable and permanent on the coastal zone