Although participatory approaches are increasingly recognised as necessary for involving local people in resource and land management, their impacts often remain limited in the long term, whether at the local level or on broader scales. Based on this observation, a CIRAD team developed a methodology, Self Land Policies, whose effects at the local and national levels can still be seen 15 years after its implementation in Senegal. Applied to the management of local territories, then beyond, to the definition of national land and environmental regulations, this methodology has launched collective dynamics driven by the stakeholders themselves, who implement them according to their own requirements.