Gwendégué is home to a series of communities settled in the south-eastern part of Burkina Faso and includes people of diverse ethnic origin. Each village has its own economic model that defines how local natural resources are to be exploited and how the various types of management and usage rights are distributed. Fishing on the floodplains is a production system organised locally and this paper looks at the rules and regulations which govern it and the impact of development projects on this customary system.