The creation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is accelerating throughout the world, but they are subject to opposition, which constitutes a challenge for their sustainability and effectiveness. The article is based on a cross-sectional analysis of 13 MPAs, located on 5 continents, and reveals the importance of conflicts in the process of territorial anchoring of MPAs, one of the objectives being to know if they weaken, and how, or if they contribute to redrawing the process of territorialization. Based on a documentary analysis of each case, in-situ observation, interviews with stakeholders (201) and participation in key dialogue sessions, the comparative analysis made it possible to observe the omnipresence of conflicts at the different stages of the institutionalisation of MPAs and then to categorise them. It emerges that the vast majority of conflicts identified are not between MPA promoters and opponents of conservation. Environmental protection brings people together, but it is the way it is managed that divides. Although the socio-cultural contexts are diverse, and the status, size and type of MPAs are different, recurring factors that reinforce conflicts have been identified. After describing them, the Authors focus on the more discrete ones associated with place attachment. For example, the feeling of dispossession, marginalisation and injustice, which is the result of insufficient consideration of the associated elements of place attachment, which affects the acceptance of the mechanism by local actors, its social legitimacy and its territorial anchorage. However, the article also presents examples of the innovation levers that are or can be activated once conflicts have been brought under control.