This article looks at the challenges posed by the introduction of locally developed, low cost techniques for soil and water conservation on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso in dryland West Africa. It asks how local community organisations and farmer groups are involved in managing these important activities, and what role they play in overseeing and directing the future trajectory of environmental change in the region. While farmers continue to adapt these techniques and experiment with new ones, it is their community institutions which provide an important point of contact with the rural development projects and local government services involved in agricultural and environmental work in these remote rural areas. These development projects, and their donors, need to realise the opportunities, and the constraints, afforded by their increasing reliance on community organisations as the "point of contact' with rural people. -from Author