present activity

I am retired from my freelance expert activity since january 2021. Before that date I was coordinating the projet named "Sustainability of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains" (Fréon et al., 2010) involving a group of 18 scientists and students from France, Peru and Canada. The aim of the study was to quantify and compare the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains for direct and indirect human consumption, from end to end (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Simplified diagram of the functioning and environmental impact of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chain. The large composite image with a red frame in the diagram represents the Peruvian Marine ecosystem whereas items surrounding it in the far left and upper parts of the diagram represent natural forcing (sunlight, wind, Coriolis and gravity forces) and “exosomatic” input such as construction materials (wood, mineral) and domesticated energies (fuels). Items on the left hand side of the diagram represent transformation of anchoveta for direct or indirect human consumption, for instance through carnivorous fish cultivated in Asia.

The first step (2009-2013) was devoted to a comparison of impacts resulting from the extraction phase according to the type of boat (small - scale, semi-industrial wooden boat, and industrial steel boat fleets) and, within each of these three categories, according to boat size. Life cycle assessments of the extraction phase have been performed, along with analyses of employment (direct and indirect) and economical rent in order to provide decision makers with a broader and multidimensional understanding of this complex sector. A similar study was undertaken for the transformation phase (fishmeal and fish oil production, canned fish, frozen fish, fresh fish and cured fish) in Peru and abroad.
During the second step (2013-2014) we elaborated contrasted scenarios regarding the level of exploitation of anchoveta and its transformation. The environmental, social and economic impacts of theses different scenarios were quantified and compared. The project is now ending with the publication phase.
The project was challenging due to its scope along with technical and scientific issues such as the unification of energy units according to their sources and diversity of the conversion processes from ecosystems to human driven systems: conventional eco-energetics around biomass from the ecosystem will be completed by calculations of exosomatic energy available for human societies (considered through the exergy concept), resulting mainly from the use of fossil fuels (Georgescu - Roegen, 1971; Margalef, 1980; Ayres and Weaver, 1998). In a recent book chapter (Voisin and Féon, 2014) we tried to reconcile recent approaches such as the New Ecology (Jørgensen et al., 2007), Industrial Ecology and Industrial Metabolism (Socolow et al., 1994, Ayres and Ayres, 1996) and Generalized Ecology (Frontier et al., 2008). We will also try to reconcile economical and environmental issues, making use of the concepts of ecological economics or eco - economy (Costanza et al., 1999; Brown, 2001; Cutler et al., 2002) and economics of industrial ecology (van den Berg and Janssen, 2004).

past activity

I did all my career working for IRD (formely ORSTOM), with a common subject of study: small pelagic fish (sardine, anchovy, mackerel and horse-mackerel). I started in 1974 by a 6-year in Senegal were I worked in collaboration with scientists from the Senegalese Institute of Agronomical Research (ISRA). In this country I was involved in conventional fishing research activities including biological and catch data collection and analysis, including artisanal fisheries. My special contribution was the incorporation of environmental variables into surplus production models. I developed the interacting CLIMPROD software which helps the user to select the most appropriate model, according to objective criteria, and then to fit it and assess the fit.

My next place of work was the Island of Margarita, in Venezuela (1981-1983), where I worked in collaboration with the La Salle Fundation of Natural Sciences (FLASA), and to a lesser extend with FONAIAP and the Univesity "Universidad del Oriente". My line of research was similar to the one I had in Senegal. I co-edited  book on the Venezuelan sardine (Sardinella aurita), its environment and exploitation in eastern Venezuela (Editions IRD, Colloques et Séminaires) with my Venezuelan colleague Jeremy Mendoza.

Then I came back to Montpellier, France, to prepare my Doctoral Thesis (1984-1986), mainly based on my experience in Senegal.

From 1987 to 1991 I was based in the Martinique Island, West Indies, where I took a new orientation toward fish behaviour studies in relation to stock assessment by acoustic. My colleagues Dr François Gerlotto, Dr Marc Soria an I made field studies related to the identification and correction of bias related to acoustic surveys.

During the following stay in France (1992-1997), I continued fish behaviour studies, focussing on schooling behaviour, within a European project between Spain, Italy and France. I completed a book on pelagic fish behaviour, coauthored with my Norwegian colleague Dr Ole Arve Misund and edited by Blackwell Science.

My second last activity took place within the the VIBES project (1997-2000), followed by the IDYLE Programme (2001-2004) and then Upwelling Ecosystem Programme (ECO-UP 2005-2008) of which I was the scientific director, and finally the EUR-OCEANS European network of excellence in which I was leading the Upwelling System group, an overarching activity between ECO-UP and other programs or institutions.

ECO-UP was therefore a continuation of the former IDYLE Programme, which is itself a follow-up of the VIBES project, primarily directed towards coastal pelagic resources of the Benguela ecosystem and their management. The  scientific focus of ECO-UP was to  understand the structure and functioning of upwelling ecosystems, which are subject to  climate change and increasing fishing pressure. We made use of a variety of integrated methods and tools used to model, assess and manage. We were thus aiming for an articulation and presentation of knowledge, using fundamental ecological questions, leading to management applications, especially for the developing countries.

The programme was developed in three ecosystems (countries in brackets were our focus points):
- Benguela ecosystem (South Africa)
- Humboldt ecosystem (Peru)
- Canary ecosystem (Morocco)

The program made use of generic tools in order to allow the fast transfer of the methodology and results to other areas. Training constituted a major aspect of this programmeat both bilateral and regional scales.

ECO-UP was a collaborative programme between IRD, M&CM (Marine and Coastal Management; Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism), UCT (University of Cape-Town), IMARPE (Instituto del Mar del Peru), INRH (Institut National de Recherche Halieutique, Morocco) and other universities / institutes in the different ecosystems. ECO-UP was funded by those institutions and benefited from additional French fundings. ECO-UP was closely associated with the Benguela Ecology Programme (BEP-V) and affiliated to the GLOBEC international programme as well as to BENEFIT and BCLME regional programmes.

My personnal activity in the IDYLE and ECO-UP Programmes was the scientific animation of the group and direct involvement in activities related to the study of reproductive strategies using IBM modelling, retrospective data analysis (statistical and GIS tools) within sub-groups of French, South-African, Peruvian and Moroccan scientists. Members of our team has been awarded the Gilchrist medal for our contribution to marine research in South Africa. This award was given to the "three Musketeers", the three of us who arrived first in the country (Philippe Cury, Claude Roy and myself).


 
3musketeers_Medal_medium
The "three Musketeers" handing their Gilchrist Medal. From left to right: Philippe Cury, Pierre Fréon and Claude Roy

map of place of works

Map

CV

Short CV

Pierre FREON                                                          CRHMT
Birth date : 06/07/1950                                            14 rue Brahms
Docteur Es-Sciences                                               34690 Fabrègues
Ecologie des pêches                                                France
Tél./fax: +33 4 99 57 32 02
e-mail: pfreon@ird.fr

I am a French Scientist who worked during all his career for the Institute of Research for Development (IRD, France), where I acted as an emeritus scientist from 2012 to 2017. I am now working as a freelance expert on pelagic fish and fisheries, and the sustainability of fish supply chains. I have a Veterinary diploma from the University of Toulouse and a PhD diploma from the University of Marseille (France). I have been working for IRD since 1975 and I was member of the Scientific Council of my institute during five years. I devoted all my career to coastal pelagic fish species, particularly in West Africa, Venezuela, West Indies and now Southern Africa. I studied first fish biology and population dynamics aspects in relation to environmental factors, then stock assessment by acoustic with a special focus on fish behavior.

I am presently retired after working as a freelance expert on pelagic fish and fisheries during 8 years, and the sustainability of fish supply chains. I am also coordinating the ending projet named "Sustainability of the Peruvian anchoveta supply " (Fréon et al., 2010) involving a group of 21 scientists and students from France, Peru and Canada. The aim of the study is to quantify and compare the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains for direct and indirect human consumption, from end to end.

Up to 2008 I was leading the ECO-UP international program (Structure and functioning of exploited upwelling ecosystems: comparative analyses within the framework of an ecosystem approach to fisheries) on the Benguela, Humboldt and Canary regions involving around 40 scientists mainly from South Africa, Peru, Morocco and France. Our program was affiliated to SPACC-GLOBEC and to the BENEFIT regional program (I was a member of the BENEFIT international scientific advisory panel, and a former chaiman of this group). I was involved in the EUR-OCEANS European network of excellence in which I am leading the Upwelling System group.

I’m author or co-author of 79 scientific papers in international journals, 40 book-chapters or assimilated and a book entitled :  “Dynamics of pelagic fish distribution and behaviour: effects on fisheries and stock assessment.” (Fréon, P. and Misund O.A. 1999. Blackwell Science, Oxford, 348 p.).

Foreign languages:

-French (mother tongue)
-English: read, spoken, written (level: good)
-Spanish: read, spoken, written (level: medium)

Long CV

Personal Data

Surname FREON
First names: Pierre, François, Lucien
Date of birth: 06/07/1950
Place of birth: Sainte-Colombe de Villeneuve s/Lot (47)
Nationality French
Professional address 14, rue Brahms
34690 Fabrègues
France
Tél: +33 4 99 57 32 00 ; Fax: +33 4 99 57 32 95                      
Courriel: pfreon@ird.fr

Cursus studiorum

1968
  • Baccalaureate in agriculture; Agen (France)
  • Baccalaureate D (in sciences); Agen (France)
1969
  • Preparation of the entrance examination to the National Veterinary Schools; Perigueux (France).
1969-1973
  • Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine; Toulouse; (France).
  • Certificate C4 of Biological Oceanography; Marseille (France).
  • DEA (Specialisation Degree) of Biological Oceanography; Marseille (France).
  • Entrance examination to ORSTOM (French Institute of Scientific Research in Co-operation for Development; now renamed IRD).
1986
  • Thesis Doctorate of Science; Marseille (France).

Current Position and Scientific Research Subjects

I am presently working as a freelance expert on pelagic fish and fisheries, and the sustainability of fish supply chains. I am also coordinating the ending projet named "Sustainability of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains" (Fréon et al., 2010) involving a group of 18 scientists and students from France, Peru and Canada. The aim of the study is to quantify and compare the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains for direct and indirect human consumption, from end to end.

Professional experience

Salaried employee in IRD (ex-ORSTOM) since end 1974 (excepted from 6/11/75 to 1/3/77, military service as volunteer for active service in over-seas research, but still serving in ORSTOM). I had the following occupations:
1975-1981
  • Scientist at the Centre de Recherches Océanographiques de Dakar-Thiaroye (CRODT) in Senegal. I worked in fisheries biology and population dynamics of coastal pelagic fish species of West Africa
  • Manager of the research programme "Study of the Coastal Pelagic Fisheries of Senegal" of the CRODT
  • Participation to CECAF (FAO Central East Committee of Atlantic Fisheries) working groups
1982-1984
  • Scientist at the Fondacion la Salle in Venezuela. I worked on fishery biology and population dynamics of the species exploited by the small scale fisheries.
  • Participation to WECAF (FAO Western Committee of Atlantic Fisheries) working groups
1984-1986
  • Scientist at the laboratory of Marine Hydrobiology in the Montpellier University an then in the ORSTOM laboratory of Montpellier during the writing of my thesis.
  • Manager of de ORSTOM division "Environment and Coastal Marine Resources" (37 scientists and technicians).
1987-1991
  • Scientist at the ORSTOM centre of Fort-de-France (Martinique, West Indies).
  • Manager of the EICHOANT (Study of the Behaviour Influence on Fisheries Biology and on Acoustic Observations in Tropical Areas).
  • Scientific co-ordinator of the Pôle de Recherche Océanologiques et Halieutique Caraïbe (thirty scientists from IFREMER, ORSTOM and University of Antilles-Guyane).
1992-1995
  • Scientist at the « Université des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc » and then at the ORSTOM Centre of Montpellier.
  • Manager of the EICHOANT program until 1994.
  • Then scientist in charge of writing a book.
1996-1997
  • Scientist at the ORSTOM Centre of Montpellier.
  • Membre of the Scientific Council of ORSTOM;
  • Membre of the Scientific Council of French National Programme on the Determinism of Recrutment;
  • Membre of the Interregional Committee of Coordination of the Research Vessel Activity in the Mediterranean Sea.
  • Coordinator of the international WG SPACC/GLOBEC on resources availability
1998-2004
  • Scientist at the « Marine and Coastal Management », Cape Town, South Africa.
  • Director of the VIBES programme
  • then of the IDYLE Programme « Interactions and spatial dynamics of renewable resources in upwelling ecosystems»
2005-2008
  • Scientist at the Centre de Recherches Halieutique de Sète, France.
  • Director of the ECO-UP Programme «Structuration and functionning of exploited upwelling ecosystems». .
2009-présent
  • Scientist at the Centre de Recherches Halieutique de Sète, France.
  • Research Unit EME (2009-2014) and then MARBEC (2015-2017) (Emeritus from 2012 to 2017).
  • Leader of the Anchoveta-SC project « Sustainability of the Peruvian anchoveta supply chains».
  • Freelance expert on pelagic fish and fisheries, and the sustainability of fish supply chains.
During these 44 years of research I have been working quite exclusively on exploited coastal pelagic species. My first experience was on fisheries biology and population dynamics (growth, reproduction, migration, interaction between fisheries, use of acoustic survey data, modelling, influence of the environment on the abundance and the catchability). During these first years I realised very soon that the fish behaviour was also an important factor to be taken into account for stock assessment, both for direct (specially acoustic with my colleague F. Gerlotto) and indirect methods of evaluation. This experience leads me to redirect my research field toward fish behaviour and to initiate with F. Gerlotto and other colleagues the EICHOANT programme. After that period I focussed on process orientated approach and modeling to understand the variability of fish recruitment. My last reorientation was related to the use of the Industrial Ecology approaches to study the environmental impacts of fishery supply chains through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In addition to the above mentioned work and responsibilities, I monitored several students during their DEA (=Master) or thesis, participated to several congress and symposium (ICES, FAO, etc.) on coastal pelagic species. I have many contacts with foreign scientists working in the same field and to get updated information.

Foreign languages

-French (mother tongue)
-English: read, spoken, written (level: reasonably good)c -Spanish: read, spoken, written (level: medium)

CLIMPROD SOFTWARE

Description

CLIMPROD is an interactive expert system that helps the user to select, in full transparency, the best suited surplus production model incorporating an environmental variable acting on the abundance or catchability of the fish stock, according to the case study. This assisted choice depends on the data-set but also on ancillary information regarding the exploitation by fisheries, the stock and the species involved. Then the software allows making prediction according to different environmental scenarios and to the exploitation level.

Although an epitaph of the Maximal Sustainable Yield (MSY) was written by Larkin in 1977, surpus production models associated to this concept are still widely used due to the lack of age-structured data. The approach used by CLIMPROD answers partly ot Larkin's criticisms by offering a variability of the catchability coefficient and/or of the abundance index according to the fluctuation of an environmental variable.

The last version of the CLIMPROD software offers three new models incorporating the quite flexible equation "aX exp(bX)" (the same used by Ricker in its famous S/R relationship) to represent a non-monotonic environmental effect. Additional statistical indicators are proposed: corrected R², Fisher test, AIC, BIC and p values of the jackknife t-test. This new version, even more user-friendly than the previous one, contains also more human-computer interactions that appears either as warning messages according to statistical and graphics analyses of the input data, ancillary data or output fitted data, including their statistical validation. Specific help text are available for any of the 36 questions asked by the software are displayed on request. Similarly, a description of the 34 models and of the justification of their used is displayed.

This software is distributed by FAO and the 5.3 beta-version is available for testing in the tab "Download". You will have to request a password to pierre.freon@ird.fr to test this version.

The following figures are screen prints of the software:



Figure 1. Main frame displayed by CLIMPROD after reading the data-set.



Figure 2. Example of a frame when choosing to use the expert system. It shows a simple question and a comment to the given answer. For any question a help file is available (button on right bottom corner).



Figure 3. Example of a frame when choosing to use the expert system. It shows intermediate results.



Figure 4. Example of a frame when choosing to use the expert system. It shows a question which answer depends on a displayed graph.



Figure 5. Additional example of a frame when choosing to use the expert system.



Figure 6. Example of a frame showing the final results when when choosing to select a model directly.



Figure 7. Example of graph showing a non-linear the changes in MSY according to the value of the environmental variable.



Figure 8. Example of possible changes in the scales of a figure (others tabs allow to also modify the titles, patterns and legends of the graphics).



Figure 9. Table of validation results showing in particular the noteworthy values of MSY and MSY according to the environmental impact.



Figure 10. Frame showing how to make prediction by modifying the values of the effort and environment variables for the next two years of data. By default these values are identical to those of the last year of observation.



Figure 11. Html page in which the numeric and graphics results are stored in different tabs as well as the answers given to the questions by the user. Only this last tab is shown, with in red characters the comments or warnings given by the expert-system.


Download

This software is licensed under the FAO and IRD Copyright. The 5.3 beta version downloadable from this site is password protected and available for testers only.

If security message pops up during downloading, please disable temporarily your antivirus and firewall. If the problem remains, please request to pierre.freon@free.fr to send you directly the file.

The computer requirements for using this software are as follows:

  • Java SE (Standard Edition) version 8 or more recent (details below)
  • Operating system: MS-Windows (Windows 7 and above), MacIntoch/Apple, Linux, all in 64 bits up to now
  • Processor (central processing unit, CPU)
  • At least 2 GB RAM
  • At least 24 Mb HDD Free Space.

CLIMPROD makes use of the Java programming language. In order to run the software you need java SE version 8 or more recent installed on your machine. To do this you can install the Java Development Kit (JDK) that contains the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) and java SE. The JDK is available for free at https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/. If you encounter java-related problems when launching CLIMPROD, especially if your equipement is old, please consult this document.

Please seletct below the file matching your computer configuration.

File Description File Size Download
Windows 64 automated setup 23.4 Mb
CLIMPROD_5.3_Windows_64bits_Setup.exe
Windows 32 automated setup 23.4 Mb
CLIMPROD_5.3_Windows_32bits_Setup.exe
Linux or Mac automated setup -
To be done
Linux or Mac manual setup 64 bits 22.3 Mb
CLIMPROD_5.3_64bits_Manual_Setup.zip
Linux or Mac manual setup 32 bits 22.3 Mb
CLIMPROD_5.3_32bits_Manual_Setup.zip

Publications

I’m author or co-author of 79 scientific papers in international journals, of 40 book-chapters and of a book entitled :  “Dynamics of pelagic fish distribution and behaviour: effects on fisheries and stock assessment.” (Fréon, P. and Misund O.A. 1999. Blackwell Science, Oxford, 348 p.).