Over a period of three weeks, I participated in a study abroad program in which my peers and I travelled to various villages in South Africa. We began in a small town called Hoedspruit, traveled all through the world-renowned Kruger National Park, visited places like Tshulu Trust facility, a community run non-profit established in the rural district of Hamakuya, and stayed at Shingwedzi, a remote tented camp in the national park available only to researchers. Each place we visited in the Communities and Conservation program taught us something entirely new, guiding us in understanding about life in post- apartheid South Africa.
One Health is all about finding solutions that balance the needs of people, animals and environment. During my time in Africa, I witnessed first hand the power of community-based conservation solutions to problems of ecological, social, and economic health generally, and especially through the amazing Black Mambas anti-poaching unit.
The Black Mambas are an anti-poaching unit located in the Balule Nature Reserve of the Greater Kruger National Park. We had the privilege of meeting them after a lengthy drive through the choking African dust. Many people are aware of the presence of rhino poaching in South Africa, but are ignorant about its severity. If the poaching continues at its current rate, rhinos will become extinct in the wild within the next twenty years. There are various methods being applied in an attempt to end the devastation on the rhino population, but none quite like the Black Mambas.
At first glance, they were not what I expected. Their appearance was unassuming, and they did not display aggressive characteristics of a typical soldier. They had styled hair, some were wearing makeup, and some even had pink braids. However, these women are not to be underestimated as they have proven themselves to be fierce defenders of rhinos.
The objective of the Black Mambas is not only to protect rhinos through patrolling the area but also to be role models in their communities. What sets them apart from other units is that they are the first majority female anti-poaching unit in South Africa, they also operate through a non-violence policy. That is, while other units generally follow a “shoot-on-sight” protocol, these women are seeking out dangerous poachers completely unarmed.
WHY ARE THEY EFFECTIVE?
Having the opportunity to meet these fearless women and listening to them speak about their passion for conservation was an experience I don’t think I or any of the members of my team will forget. But there was still a piece of the story that was missing for me. I knew what they were doing, but I still didn’t understand how they were able to be so successful.
It wasn’t until several days after, when I had a discussion with our tour guide and now friend, Nkosinothi, that I really understood how these unarmed women were so successful. Being a South African native, Nkosinothi shared with me the cultural views of these women and their influence. Nkosinothi explained the unspoken taboo that killing a woman is intolerable, and if the villagers found out that they have done so they are shunned from their village. He continued to elaborate about the cultural insight that most poachers don’t actually want to poach. Despite knowing the illegality of poaching, to most this is simply a means to make money so they can support their impoverished families. In typical anti-poaching encounters, the shoot-on-sight policy pushes poachers to fight back; after all, the poachers want to go home to their families too. So, when that beautiful and innocently unarmed woman walks out and confronts a poacher in the act, it catches them off guard. According to Nkosinothi, the common reaction is for them to drop their guns and run the other way before the Black Mamba can radio for backup.
You can kill as many poachers as you want, but they will never stop coming. There will always be more poor, desperate men trying to feed their families. The Black Mambas may not be eliminating the poachers but they are stopping them from killing and being killed. Their work aids in breaking a cycle of poverty within their communities.
The Black Mambas do more than protect their borders: they have also implemented educational programs to teach their community about the benefits of rhino conservation. Through this they effectively address the social and moral dissolution that results from rhino poaching within their communities. The Black Mambas offer a different approach to rhino poaching. They are bridging the gap between the animals and the community, recognizing that solutions are complex and require difficult negotiations between the needs of conservation, rural livelihoods, poverty and health, and questions of environmental justice. Addressing these complexities requires us to consider the core values and methodologies of One Health, and this is why it has been a major part of my inspiration in establishing our new CSU-based non-profit: Pivotal Places.
PIVOTAL PLACES
Communities and Conservation is an innovative program run by CSU professors Melissa McHale and David Bunn, and it draws extensively on their decades of research experience in South Africa. The mission of the program was to utilize our time on the ground in SA to gather research primarily on water security, urban wildlife conflict and the utilization of natural resources. We accomplished this through an anthropological approach by gathering interviews and personal stories of community members and observing these interactions first hand.
Since my peers and I have been back in the States we’ve taken this research and have been working on launching a non-profit called Pivotal Places. This organization is intended to develop initiatives that promote sustainable and resilient communities through a multidimensional approach. Much like the Black Mambas, we want to focus on the system as a whole. To do this, we plan on continuing our research in South Africa within the communities we aim to promote. This will allow us to better understand the areas of need as well as solutions that work with both science and society. Once these are identified and brought back to the US, Pivotal Places will create development campaigns targeting the particular areas that our researchers recognized. This process creates unique opportunities for students and the communities we work with. Much of what we do, will require a flexibility of approach that moves between veterinary science, conservation biology, and questions of rural public health. We hope that some of our solutions will not come too late for South Africa’s unique and embattled rhino population.
Article contributed by
Jessica Faber
