Jörg Freyhof holds a PhD in Biology and works as a scientist in freshwater biodiversity, ecology and ichthyology at the German Leibnitz-Institute of Freshwater Biology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin.
He is the European chair of the IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group and the IUCN Red List authority for freshwater fishes. Jörg Freyhof has published more than 150 scientific papers which have reached more than 8.500 citations. He also authored the European IUCN Red List of freshwater fishes, which is actually renewed.
"Challenges for the Conservation of Endangered Fish Species"
In Europe only, about 600 different species of freshwater fish are native and about one out of three is threatened by extinction. This makes fishes, together with other freshwater taxa groups as mussels and snails, the most threatened in Europe. Thread levels are high especially in the Mediterranean Biodiversity hotspot, where many local and regional endemic species are found. Massive, often illegal, water abstraction, hydropower development as well as the completely uncontrolled invasion of alien species are major threads. While about 40 species of freshwater fish have gone extinct in the West Palearctic, conservation efforts are very limited and usually focused on species, which are neither endangered nor rare or of major concern. While dedicated action is urgently needed, freshwater biodiversity conservation is underfunded and the needs and challenges of fishes are poorly known by traditional nature conservation societies. Massive outreach activities and policy actions are as much needed as to re-vitalize species conservation to hold biodiversity loss.
See my short CV here: https://www.igb-berlin.de/profile/joerg-freyhof
