**5.1 Lessons learnt, scope and limitations of the comparative analysis**

Lastly, it emerges from the case studies that MPA status does not offer *a priori* protection but constitutes a potentially activatable capital to aid conservation. Its activation depends on the MPA's inscription process in the local institutional landscape, often hampered by factors such as funding by project, social non-acceptance, and oppositions between public organisations. We then observe that, whatever the MPA's degree of institutionalisation, the actual scale of the protection initiative does not correspond to the classified perimeter. It is therefore necessary to take into consideration the area with effective protection rather than the area officially declared, with a level of active protection (where the MPA is proactive), which is a fraction of the classified perimeter, and then a level of passive protection, i.e. the classified

#### *Measuring Marine Protected Areas' Conservation Effort: A Different Look at Three… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98933*

perimeter broadened to include nearby areas (where actors use the existence of the MPA to oppose potential threats to the environment). The case studies enabled us to observe the way in which legislative tools at the MPA's disposal are used. What emerges is the fact that the effectiveness of an MPA is not correlated to its regulatory and that the absence of regulations specific to the MPA does not mean that the MPA is ineffective. Firstly because MPAs might not create regulations but instead activate rules that exist but are not known and/or not respected, and then because having a considerable legislative arsenal signifies nothing about the way in which it is used. The case studies have enabled us to specify the way in which regulations are drawn up and used by MPAs, primarily as a medium for information, awareness raising or negotiation, with the advantages and biases inherent in these practices.

The scope of these findings is linked to the fact that they call into question a representation of the triptych (a status, a perimeter, regulations) upon which MPAs are founded: these three elements are, in fact, less specific and decisive than they appear to be, and it is worth analysing their role and outlines in each case. This representation forms the basis for the international assessment of each country's conservation effort, which we propose to reconsider. But can these findings be generalised from thirteen case studies? There is nothing representative about our sample, but the recurrence of the mechanisms is instructive: it is true that regulations are not used by all in the same way, but all the MPAs prioritise regulations that they attempt to enforce while other rules are above all used as a medium for dialogue, information and negotiation. It is true that the ratio between the actively protected perimeter and the MPA perimeter is highly variable, but these two levels rarely coincide completely. With regard to passive protection, it is meaningful in every case. In addition to these recurrences, the precise analysis of the mechanisms studied leads us to state that they exist in many MPAs. However, it would be worth completing this analysis with the precise assessment of actively protected perimeters, the estimation of passively protected perimeters and a more precise identification of the self-regulation mechanisms constructed in certain MPAs.
