THE DIFFICULT LINK BETWEEN ICZM PRINCIPLES AND MARINE PROTECTED AREAS MANAGEMENT: THE NORTH ADRIATIC CASE 
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can control and plan activities within their borders that often include both coastal zones and sea; at the same time MPAs are “islands of protection” surrounded by a context that can represent a continuous source of impacts for those resources meant to be protected. Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is therefore a needed strategy to guarantee the effi ciency and the protection of MPAs while preventing surrounding economic activities to determine impacts on these areas. The North Adriatic sea represents a high productive fi shery basin and a harbor for high biodiversity ecosystems that is one of the most threatened in the Mediterranean. Despite such a sensitive and threatened environment, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia provide a protection for marine and coastal waters that cover less than the 0,5% of the Northern Adriatic sea surface: only 8 MPAs were identifi ed in the North Adriatic. This paper aims to understand if and how Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) principles, as described in the Protocol on ICZM for the protection in the Mediterranean of the Barcelona Convention, are implemented in the MPAs management and which is the perceived role of ICZM by MPAs stakeholders in supporting MPAs activities. The fi ndings of this study show that ICZM continues to be regarded as a set of principles and recommendations that are very diffi cult to be translated into practice; moreover, although some improvements have been recorded recently, the links between ICZM principles and MPAs management remain poorly developed. 
Keywords: MPAs, ICZM, North Adriatic.