In Namibia, the interest in customary environmental law developed when, after Independence, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism drafted a new conservation policy, which changed the inherited approach to conservation. Instead of focusing on nature alone, i.e. nature minus human beings, the new approach took note of the relationship between nature as such and human beings living in and with nature, and by doing so, also acknowledged that traditional communities had their own ways of dealing with nature. It was in this context that customary environmental law research began. One first result was the publication of Without Chiefs, There Would Be No Game. Customary Law and Nature Conservation. Later, the internationally designed and conducted BIOTA project requested legal anthropological research on the potential of customary law for the protection of biodiversity. Biodiversity and the Ancestors: Challenges to Customary and Environmental Law. Case Studies from Namibia a first set of studies was accomplished within the BIOTA project in 2008. A second set appeared in a subsequent publication Knowledge Lives in the Lake. Case Studies in Environmental and Customary Law from Southern Africa. Certain aspects of the research done in the BIOTA project could be pursued further in another internationally conducted project: the TFO project. The TFP project was completed in 2015. The results produced in both projects have remained relevant in assessing the importance of customary law for matters of the environment.