Les aires marines protégées à l’épreuve du sous-développement en Afrique de l’Ouest

The contribution of the Marine Protected Areas (MPA) is essential to the conservation of the eco-systems and the socio-economic development of the populations of poor countries. The concept of MPA started developing at the beginning of the 1970’s when the international community became aware of the destruction of the environment by human activities, sometimes with irreversible consequences. International law has always constituted the «legal base» of the creation and the evolution of the MPA. In the 1990’s, the notions of sustainability and governance integrated new priorities in the MPA objectives and the conditions for their establishment, particularly by means of participation and decentralization movements. The construction of the MPA as legal and administrative tools follows the direction of public policy. The institutional structure and its standardizing framework are also marked by western models. However, the state specificity of under developed nations reveals the sui generis functioning mechanisms of the MPA. The real legal applicability of these systems is very variable, and shows certain characteristics such as the putting into question of the legitimacy and the efficiency of public action, the difficulties in carrying out political reforms broad enough to improve the management of protected areas, the multiplication of those concerned, the tendency to a «privatizing» of the MPA through exterior interventions which claim a part of responsibility, and finally, the economic and commercial dimension which certainly constitutes the most important threat for the future of the MPA and its indigenous populations