The forgotten nature of national parks.
Résumé
National Parks (NPs) are mainly designed to protect the remaining "wilderness" of a given country and have primarily focused on the conservation of extraordinary areas or emblematic species. However, to halt the current biodiversity crisis, the protection of selected sites dedicated to most threatened species is clearly not sufficient. In this chapter, we argue that NPs should now consider a more 'ordinary nature', which has been neglected in conservation and tourism guidelines so far. This ordinary nature encompasses many familiar aspects of the biodiversity, including widespread and abundant species. We first use the French NP network as a case study to highlight why ordinary nature was not considered in this network. We further show how considering common and familiar species could be helpful to track global change impacts, derive original management applications, but also revive the interest of tourism for their 'everyday nature'. In the long run, the positive role played by NPs for nature conservation and tourism will be maintained if we ensure that social, economic and environmental goals are closely aligned. Expanding traditional NP policies to include ordinary nature would be a promising step in that direction.