The Parque Nacional Nevado de Toluca (PNNT) is one of the largest protected natural area (PNA) of Mexico. A 1936 decree defines the PNNT as areas above 3000m a.s.l. surrounding the Xinantecatl volcano, but the delineation separating the protected area from the existing administrative or agricultural boundaries has never been clearly established. Later in 1937 it was indeed necessary to alter its status to incorporate the existence of farmland and populations within the park whose expropriation was not possible. The persistence of these rural communities, the agricultural land held under an original form of collective property (‘ejidos’), a distant presence of the authorities, are factors that helped all kinds of practices persist or develop, in direct or latent conflict with legal dispositions specific to PNA. Under severe pressure, especially that due to the agglomeration of Toluca, nearby capital of the State of Mexico, undergoing degradation processes directly related to the increasing number of rural communities, the PNNT requires an in-depth diagnosis of the status and sustainability of its natural resources and of the role and interaction of social- and economic factors.. In this Selina project, a multi-level analysis of natural resources management will be developed: cultivated plot, production unit and rural community. It will also include identification of the stakeholders and their interplay from grass roots to government instance level. We will examine in particular how local initiatives can be better coordinated with public policies. Since these innovations most often occur in the 'building' of territories, we will seek to identify in this context those who contribute to the establishment of a sustainable model of territory. From this point proposals will be made to improve the management of Natural Protected Area including the participation of local communities. This joint research project between French and Mexican institutions is based on skills developed on both sides in the fields of farming system diversity, land use and land use change, characterization of living conditions of populations, public policies impact on sustainable development, community management of forest areas, governance and conflict analysis, agriculture multifunctionality, rural poverty. Trans-disciplinarity of this project, from social and political sciences to physical sciences, will help develop an integrated approach. Positive benefits in direct relationship to joint research are expected to cross social, economic, environmental, political and territorial fields. They are foreseen as immediate results of the study and analysis of interactions between public policies and local practices of natural resource managements within the PNNT. This will lead to a better integration of practices and local organizations in the design and implementation of innovative public policies. It will also help with future national and international debates on public policies and their changes following the Copenhagen and Merida conferences, and in view of upcoming conferences. As a contribution to those debates, an international conference on this theme will be organized by the project itself in 2014 and proceedings will be edited as a book.