The focus of this research is on the socio-political effects of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Namibia. It rests on field research undertaken by Eva Schiffer in the second half of 2002 in Namibia. After the end of apartheid (1990) the new Namibian government chose a number of strategies to right the wrongs of the past, both economically and politically. One of them is Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM): Since 1996 communities in the communal areas (former "homelands") have the right to form communal conservancies to jointly manage and protect their wildlife. This approach to conservation is expected to have ecological, economic and socio-political effects. The main aim of this research was to assess the effects, both material and immaterial, that CBNRM has on local resource use governance. To find out how and why CBNRM changed local governance, the  institutional framework ("rules of the game") was analysed in relation to actor-specific factors. To this end an interactive visualisation tool (the "power game") was developed. This tool allowed for the discussion of complex social relationships with interviewees from different backgrounds in terms of culture, education and experience.