Unlocking the potential of protected areas for freshwaters

Declining trends in the integrity of freshwater systems demand exploration of all possible conservation solutions. Freshwater protected areas have received little attention, despite the prominence of protected areas as conservation interventions for terrestrial and more recently marine features. We argue that a dialogue on freshwater protected areas has been neglected both because few models of good protected area design exist, and because traditional notions of protected areas translate imperfectly to the freshwater realm. Partly as a result of this conceptual disconnect, freshwaters have been largely ignored in protected area accounting schemes, even though a number of existing freshwater conservation strategies could qualify according to general protected area definitions. Rather than impose terrestrially-motivated ideas about protected areas onto freshwaters, we propose new vocabulary – freshwater focal area, critical management zone, and catchment management zone – that can be used in conjunction with IUCN protected area categories and that recognize the special ecological dynamics of freshwaters, and in particular the critical role of fluvial processes. These terms, which attempt to diffuse concerns about locking away essential ecosystem goods and services, move us toward consideration of protected areas for freshwaters. This conceptual shift, which acknowledges that freshwater conservation may occur remotely from freshwater features, opens the door for improved integration of freshwater, terrestrial, and marine concerns in protected area design and management.