World’s first all-female patrol protecting South Africa’s rhinosUnarmed Black Ma
World’s first all-female patrol protecting South Africa’s rhinosUnarmed Black Mambas recruited from local communities are guarding nature reserve inside the Greater Kruger national park“The Black Mambas are all young women from local communities, and they patrol inside the Greater Kruger national park unarmed. Billed as the first all-female unit of its kind in the world, they are not just challenging poachers, but the status quo.The battle against the poaching that kills a rhino every seven hours in South Africa has acquired a new weapon: women.In a bid to engage communities outside the park fence, the reserve hired 26 local jobless female high-school graduates, and put them through an intensive tracking and combat training programme. Kitted out in second-hand European military uniforms, paid for by donations, the women were deployed throughout the 40,000 hectare reserve, unarmed but a visible police presence, like a British bobby.The numbers suggest the approach works. In the last 10 months the reserve has not lost a rhino, while a neighbouring reserve lost 23. Snare poaching has dropped 90%.Leitah Michabela has been working as a Black Mamba game guard for the last two years. “Lots of people said, how can you work in the bush when you are a lady? But I can do anything I want.”She stops traffic at a small roadblock where, a few days later, a group of poachers were arrested before they could kill a rhino. “Many other people, especially young ladies like us, they want to join us,” she says.Michabela and the other 26 Mambas are looked up to by the young women in her village as heroes, within the same communities the poachers come from. “I am a lady, I am going to have a baby. I want my baby to see a rhino, that’s why I am protecting it.”Read the full piece herePhoto 1: The first all-female anti-poaching unit in Africa, on patrol in Balule nature reserve. Photograph: Jeffrey Barbee/Jeffrey BarbeePhoto 2: Craig Spencer, right, debriefs the members of the Black Mamba anti poaching unit.Photograph: Jeffrey Barbee -- source link
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