Although the last century has seen the emergence of exciting new strategies for resource management in the form of community based natural resource management (CBNRM), these developments are more of incremental than revolutionary nature. CBNRM falls under the wider development debate on the role of the State in African development in particular ? a debate in which stakeholders at international, national, and local level defend various theories and views based on their experience and ideologies. As a result, these positions determine the form and practice of CBNRM, through negotiations, objections, collusion, and intrigue. Based on the cases of Zimbabwe and Botswana, this study brings together these analytical threads to argue that CBNRM outcomes, in the long term are path dependent.