This article investigates the impact of transnational environmental organizations on rural people involved in conservation by exploring the impacts of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) ivory trade ban on Namibia's elephant conservation policy. This case study examines how rural African people are put into categories of 'conservation heroes' or 'environmental villains' by local conservation practitioners, government officials in Namibia and transnational conservation actors. Findings indicate that the approach of state officials and conservation organizations (CO) results in incomplete representations of both rural African people and the cultural importance these people attach to elephants. The article concludes that current environmental narratives associated with rural African people have been used as powerful 'tools of persuasion' at the state and international level to support and legitimate conservation policy and resource use in relation to the concerns of transnational environmental actors to the exclusion of rural African people. Keywords: Community based natural resource management, Sustainable utilization, Elephant conservation, Ivory trade, Namibia.