Nyae Nyae Conservancy, the first conservancy gazetted in the community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) program in 1998, concluded negotiations with a trophy hunting company for a tender of over 1 million Namibian dollars. African Hunting Safaris submitted and won a tender for N$1,045,000 (approximately US$103,000) per year for the next five years with the Nyae Nyae Conservancy.

In December 2001, the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, home to San people, decided to terminate its hunting concession agreement due to general misunderstandings between both parties and a failure to honor contractual agreements. As a consequence, there was a need to retender the concession. At the same time, this presented an opportunity to revise the hunting quota. The Nyae Nyae Conservancy worked with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to set a higher quota of over 11 species of wildlife for off take, based on the current numbers at Nyae Nyae. The new concession was bid by eight safari companies and was ultimately awarded to African Hunting Safaris, making the Nyae Nyae hunting concession Namibia's first "Million Namibian Dollar Concession."

The retendering of this highly valuable concession reflects two major successes of the Namibians` CBNRM program. First, the Nyae Nyae community was empowered to terminate its concession with its current concessionaire after it failed to meet contractual agreements. Secondly, following nine years of development and managing Nyae Nyae's wildlife resources, the quota was substantially increased, allowing Nyae Nyae Conservancy to more than triple its annual income from last year. Neither of these events would have been possible without long-term USAID and LIFE program support.

Nyae Nyae Conservancy is one of five conservancies in Namibia that have hunting concessions. Trophy hunting and meat made up 22 percent of the total revenues for the CBNRM program in 2002, and it is vital to some of the conservancies. This is particularly true for Nyae Nyae Conservancy, located off the major tourist route in Namibia. It is three hours off the paved road and ends at the Botswana border facing a high security fence. Nyae Nyae is Namibia's largest conservancy at 9,000 square km. With a low population density, it is an ideal environment for wildlife. The San have made major changes in their life-styles and no longer poach the wildlife. They have managed it well for use both as a food source and as tourism attraction that engages trophy hunters.