A significant element in the rise of the sustainable development discourse in the last two decades has been the resurgence of environmentalist concerns articulated in global terms. Issues concerning the environment and poverty, democracy and social justice have been drawn into focus under the same lens. As Peet and Watts (1996: 35) point out, it is striking how indigenous rights movements, conservation politics, food security, the emphasis on local knowledges and calls for access to, and control over, local resources crosscut the environment-poverty axis. Each of these issues is brought to bear in the far north-east of Namibia, where local Khwe San people and an environmental NGO are preparing to map Khwe knowledge about land and natural resources in the West Caprivi Game Park. Global environmental and indigenous rights discourses have intersected with locally specific agendas to give rise to this plan. In this thesis, I seek to trace these influences and offer an interpretation of how they are manifested and contested within the context of an environment and development project. In addition, I ask what the implications of mapping are for marginalized Khwe groups, investigating the claim that new mapping technologies can assist in the devolution of environmental management and in rural development.