Comparing Energy intensity Results for Commercial Fisheries in France

No poster available.The main objectives assigned to ecosystemic indices are to fuel the debate\ud on the best ways to reduce the impact of global warming. Fishing activities\ud are also concerned with the debate. The assessments carried out about fish\ud products show that the use of fuel in the fishing stage has the strongest\ud impact on the environment. This paper addresses the issue of the\ud significance of energy intensity from results obtained for French fishing\ud fleets. The Atlantic French fleet exploits a hundred commercial species or\ud more, but only a few of them are targeted. Energy intensity is estimated on\ud the basis of global production (target and by-catch) using allocation\ud methods. It is then possible to calculate energy needs for individual\ud species. Moreover, fishing gears are separated in two groups, active and\ud passive methods. Methods used in the paper are very close to Life Cycle\ud Assessment methodology but restricting system boundaries to fishing\ud sector. International studies devoted to energy intensity in fisheries\ud concluded that fishing fleets are the main polluters compared to\ud transportation of fish products and marketing sectors (land-based\ud processors and fishmongers). Compared with measures from other\ud international studies, the results prove to be lower when the scale of\ud analysis is large. Quantifying intensity energy on a global scale for\ud fisheries could then be called into question