There are a wide variety of enterprises involved in Community Based Natural Resources Management, which are both instruments and objectives for economic development. Crafts organisations and tourism ventures are the most common enterprises for their use of natural resources. Opportunities for veld and non-timber forest products are being explored, but it is a challenge to find internal and external markets and develop appropriate harvesting and processing techniques.
Crafts co-operatives, for the Basarwa especially, provide a small but important source of cash using an indigenous skill base. Jewelry using ostrich eggshells and pods, leatherworks and wood carvings are highly marketable for sale to tourists. In /Xai-/Xai, !Kokoro Crafts is a loosely structured co-operative which acts as a middleman, buying crafts and selling them for the artisans. The structure is simple and accessible, and its purpose straightforward. Used as a starter activity, the process of decision-making and handling of earnings could be observed prior to complex tourism ventures. Furthermore, crafts groups usually have a higher percentage of female participants - in /Xai-/Xai, 75% of the !Kokoro Crafts members are women - and provide a crucial source of income for female-headed households.

Tourism activities can take many forms; a community can sub-lease its wildlife-offtake quota to a hunting safari, tender resource-use rights to a photographic tourism company or operate its own cultural or eco-tourism. The first two options yield the most overall earnings for the least amount of work. However, they do not offer much autonomy, long-term employment growth or managerial opportunity and bring into question the idea of Community Based Natural Resources Management.
Instead, communities such as /Xai-/Xai and D'kar have opted to take an active role in their development by self-operating eco-tourism based on local culture and traditional knowledge. The choice involves a great deal of mobilisation, training and hard work, but for /Xai-/Xai and D'kar, employment creation for both men and women, pride in their unique identity and ability to make decisions and manage their own enterprise are worthy of the cost.

Veld Products Research and Development and Thusano Lefatsheng are local NGOs supported by SNV who have been exploring CBNRM opportunities in veld products. Utilising veld products is not as systematic and lucrative as wildlife utilisation, as government regulations are not yet definitive and harvesting, processing and marketing techniques are still being forged. However, both NGOs have been buying harvests of sengaparile (Devil's Claw), truffles, thatch grass and herbal teas and assisting communities develop monitoring systems and explore new products.