Diversification of fisheries activities and construction of sustainability

While French marine fisheries must cope with increasing difficulties, the concept of multifunctionality of fisheries is emerging through a diversification of their activities. Facing with new constraints (depleted resources, rising fuel prices, etc.), fishers develop alternatives to sustain their activity. They seek to find local solutions by introducing new kind of activities and innovations linked to their classic fisheries activities in order to confront with global changes (EU policies, globalized markets, climate change, etc.). These activities call for new ways of interacting with the environment questions, the role of institutional players, scientists, local stakeholders and customers together with their usual production activity. They develop alternatives based on the fishing boat activity by altering relations among fishers and the wider context in which they are embedded the coastal zone. When considered alone, each diversified activity seems to offer an individual solution of resistance. If considered all together, these solutions could become more relevant to support sustainable fisheries. Based on first results from two studies(1)led in France, in Brittany, and in the Channel (Interreg program), the aim of this research is to analyse how diversification of fisheries activities enhance sustainability and support integrated coastal zone management. By analysing activities of diversification in small-scale fisheries, we develop a classification of these heterogeneous activities. Then, we identify various strategies of diversification and their impact on the coastal zone. Finally, we analyse how diversification enhance resilience of small-scale fisheries, and how fishers become real actors with real links to other stakeholders, in order to built local policies in the coastal zone.