Marine protected areas are a laboratory of integrated coastal management. Driving the MPA system requires the implementation of a battery of indicators of governance. This governance must take into account both the internal dynamics of the system and the threats coming from the system environment. As part of a research project funded by the French Ministry of Ecology, (Liteau program), 4 coral reef MPAs were selected as pilote studies (St Martin in the Caribbean, Reunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, the South Lagoon of New Caledonia in Oceania) to develop jointly between scientists and managers of MPAs governance indicators. The approach is definitely bottom up. It is based on the co-construction of indicators. In that way, the views of the scientists who bring their knowledge of governance and ICZM were crossed with the views of MPA managers who bring their field knowledge and specific requests relating to the management of their MPAs. The process was conducted in 5 steps which will be described. The main indicators will be presented and then discussed.