Increasingly complex discussions concerning North-South relations and global environmental strategies are producing debate about the links between poverty and the environment. This paper looks specifically at societal-environmental interactions under the simultaneous impacts of climatic variability and structural land-use changes. The context of these changes is provided by the establishment of Wildlife Management Areas in Botswana in 1986. The paper examines the extent to which the recent implementation of community based natural resource management projects in the Kalahari Wildlife Management Areas are changing access to, and use and management of, the natural resources of the rural populations living within these areas. These changes have important implications for the dynamics of livelihood strategies and thus the viability of resource-based livelihoods in the Kalahari environment.