This thesis comprises a history of identity-building and of contestations for authority over land and natural resources in Namibia's West Caprivi. It focuses on the period since Namibia's Independence in 1990 but roots the study in the colonial period. The thesis argues that the rise of environmental discourses and Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Namibia, combined with the post-Independence politics of ethnically-based 'traditional authority', has provided a crucible within which many Khwe San people, notably leaders and those exposed to NGOs, have reworked and mobilised an ethnic identity.