Moorea (French Polynesia) experienced a demographic boom in the 1980s. The population of the island doubled within 20 years, which generated significant anthropic pressures on the lagoon and the coastal area. In this context, the local authorities have worked since the end of the 1990s on a plan to regulate the uses of the lagoon. The PGEM – Plan de Gestion de l’Espace Maritime – formalized in 2004 includes eight marine protected areas (MPAs) and two regulated fishing areas (RFAs). Although the PGEM shows encouraging results from an ecological perspective, it is however considered a failure from a societal point of view. Among the reasons for this failure, I will emphasize in particular the problematic use of conventional mapping in the participatory workshops that contributed to the delimitation of MPAs and RFAs. After clarifying this cultural issue – actually, conventional maps induce ruptures, while the Oceanian culture is based on continuums –, I will outline the methodological approach that we are currently exploring in the ANR HITI research project in order to develop cartographic artifacts that meet the operational requirements of the PGEM managers, as well as the Oceanian cultural specificities.