Legal designation is a necessary foundation for protected-area governance, but it does not demonstrate whether authority, resources and implementation generate measurable conservation gains. This study assessed management effectiveness at Al Hoceima National Park, a 48,460-ha mixed terrestrial–marine protected area on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, using the Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET). The 2024 assessment combined documentary review, two facilitated workshops, semi-structured interviews, field observations and consensus validation. Six components of the IUCN–WCPA management cycle were scored on a 0–100 scale. Because only aggregated component scores were available, analysis was deliberately descriptive. The unweighted mean was 53.7, with values ranging from 42.2 to 59.3. Outcomes (59.3), planning (59.0) and processes (57.4) were above the site mean; context scored 55.2, whereas outputs (49.0) and especially inputs (42.2) were below it. The 16.8-point planning–input gap identifies a designation-to-performance discontinuity: legal recognition and strategic planning are more developed than the human, financial and technical capacity required to implement and verify conservation action. The relatively high outcomes score requires caution because it includes stakeholder-informed qualitative evidence while ecological time series remain incomplete. IMET therefore provides a management baseline rather than a causal estimate of ecological impact. We translate the profile into seven actions: budget-linked targets, a marine-capacity plan, an integrated evidence register, formalized co-management, risk-based surveillance, diversified finance and repeated assessment. The case demonstrates how periodic self-assessment can become an accountable adaptive-management cycle when scores are linked to evidence, resources and explicit decision rules.
