The part played by protected areas in the conservation of threatened French freshwater fish

With a view to setting up a national conservation programme for endangered freshwater fish, a survey has been conducted to find out how these species were represented in the main French protected areas. Only a few of these were established specifically for fish protection. Not all of the threatened species are found in protected areas. When one of these species is found in a protected site, it is rarely monitored or subjected to a specific management plan and the same applies to other fish populations present. Moreover, the sites generally do not cover the whole area of a catchment basin; more often, only part of the basin or stream is protected, which is not enough to maintain the species. Various measures are recommended in order to correct the situation and to include protected areas within a coherent network so that they can become a major part of conservation efforts for threatened freshwater fish species. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.