In Côte d'Ivoire, the law of national parks and reserves (PNR) operates for the centralized management of PNRs, from 1965 to 2002. This way of managing PNRs is perceived as one of the main causes of their deterioration. Starting in 2002, the Ivorian State, in order to reverse this trend, enacted a new law on PNR (law No. 2002-102 of 11 February 2002). This law establishes two (2) democratic approaches to the management of PNRs. On the one hand, it is about the decentralized management of PNRs. It is operated by delegating their management to a national public institution: the Ivorian Office of Parks and Reserves (OIPR). On the other hand, the 2002 law on PNRs mentioned above prescribes the involvement of a plurality of actors in the sustainable conservation of these protected areas. They are the State, the private sector, the populations, the NGOs and conservation and development associations. However, the rules of law that underlie these two democratic approaches to the management of PNRs contain shortcomings that may hinder the sustainable conservation of these protected areas.