Red-Fish “Capturing the REDuction of FISHing grounds (Red-Fish): OWF’ development in the context of fishing grounds” is a study that aims to highlight past, present and future restrictions on fishing by mapping them.

The exclusion of fishing from certain maritime zones is one of the main factors blocking the installation of offshore wind farms. Despite France’s ambitions to develop this type of energy production, the amount of space that offshore wind farms will occupy seems relatively small in relation to the surface area of metropolitan France’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), given its vast maritime domain.

This might therefore seem a minor issue, except that offshore wind is not the only element that restricts maritime fishing activities. On the contrary, offshore wind farms contribute to to a whole range of different factors which, by accumulation, restrict professional sea fishing (other uses, marine protected areas, the rise of regulations specific to fishing, Brexit, etc.).

Starting from the premise that the development of offshore wind power depends in part on a good understanding of spatial restrictions on fishing, the aim of the Red-Fish project is to place offshore wind power in this more general context, by mapping the precise evolution of all restrictions on fishing, past, present and future, to ensure that fishing and offshore wind power can coexist effectively.

The Red-Fish study is being carried out by the Littoral – Environnement – Télédétection – Géomatique (LETG) laboratory at the University of Nantes, in close collaboration with the fisheries committees of the different maritime areas and the national fisheries committee.