A generic marine protected area model, challenged by indigenous peoples and local communities: How can the model be adapted or reinvented?

Many Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) face difficulties of social acceptance. This comparative analysis of 13 MPAs spanning five continents aims to explain these problems by comparing their localization processes in order to identify possible recurring mechanisms. Analyzing their trajectories and the conflicts they cause reveal the existence of a generic model of Marine Protected AreaS which is mostly implicit and applied everywhere. It enables us to identify 7 components of this model: who decides, what legitimizes the decision, the decision’s temporalities and vectors, and then, inside the action modalities, the relationship with the area, with nature, with exchange and the action presentation and organization. Laying bare this model makes it possible to explain the misunderstandings that arise and many acceptance problems that lead to conflict and inefficiency. Based on observations of local adaptations or reinventions of the MPA model, proposals are made for a global overhaul of the model. to make it more flexible and open to multiple ways of thinking about nature and conservation. • Despite their diversity, MPAs conform to an implicit generic international model. • The discrepancy between this model and local values explains recurring conflicts patterns. • By analyzing discourses in conflicts, seven components of the model were identified. • Mostly, environmental conservation unites people – it is the way in which it is devised that divides. • Locally, in MPAs, several ways of adapting and reinventing the model are explored.