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The article investigates the power relations that emerged around a CBNRM programme and a land claim by the Makuleke community of the Northern Transvaal Province of South Africa. The land from which the Makuleke were forcibly removed in 1969 was incorporated into the Kruger National Park. Under post-apartheid land tenure reform legislation the community was now able to reclaim the land that they had lost.This paper describes the process of bargaining that took place between the community and the National Park authorities. It is argues that the CBNRM intervention at Makuleke had the unintended consequence of weakening the community's bargaining power relative to that of the state. The a multi-stakeholder planning process used unintentionally undermined the community's ability to develop and implement an independent bargaining strategy with respect to the land claim negotiations. The authors argue that this technicist approach to CBNRM planning resulted in the diametrical opposite to the formal objectives of the development intervention being achieved. [Adapted from authors]
