Résumé
Protected areas (PA) are a central element of Human/Nature coviability. During the last twenty years, their number has increased dramatically and new, diverse objectives have been set. This diversification is accompanied by an increase in the lack of effectiveness on the conservation of biodiversity and endangered species. The financial shortages and the low social acceptability can also heavily impact the functioning of many PAs Faced with the increasing risk of “paper parks”, this chapter shows that governance of PAs is a critical tool for sustaining this aspect of human/nature coviability. Governance of PAs is proper to a decision-making process and deals with the management of information flow and the monitoring of actions. In the first part, the concept of environmental governance applied to PAs is specified. In the second part, governance is taken as a decision-making process, through the management of information flows. This approach is detailed in a third section. The PAs steering and control module and the social acceptance of PAs are introduced as a central element of their governance.