The Nyae Nyae Conservancy is the ancestral home of the Ju/’Hoansi (San) Bushmen and one of the last few remaining wildernesses in Namibia. It is estimated that the Ju/’Hoansi have lived in the Nyae Nyae for at least 40 000 years.
Ju/’Hoansi practiced a lifestyle of hunters and gatherers up until the early 1950’s, visiting the greater Kalahari eco-system, but with the development of the fence along the Namibia/Botswana boarder in 1965, the Ju/’Hoansi were squeezed into an ever diminishing landscape by the South African government, which ruled South West Africa until Namibian independence in 1990. Bushmanland was created in attempt to segregate ethnic groups under apartheid, leaving the Ju/’Hoansi with 10% of their former territory. This reduction in land forced the Ju/’Hoansi to adopted to new lifestyles.
