This paper critically evaluates the gestion des terroirs villageois (GTV) approach to community management of natural resources. The approach is widely used in francophone West Africa by NGOs, bilateral programmes, and government agencies. Three aspects of GTV approaches are presented and reviewed, based on research conducted with a large bilateral programme in Bam Province on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso. These are: i) the ways in which GTV projects tackle problems of teritorial control; ii) their ability to respond to and work with local power relations; and iii) differential social and economic benefits resulting from the programmes. These issues are examined in two communities that have worked with GTV planning since the early 1990s. The paper concludes by stressing the significance, and the drawbacks of gestion des terroirs and asks whether it represents any more than a 'second best' form of community planning for natural resource management in the Sahel.