A fierce group of women, known as the ‘Black Mambas’, who run an anti-poaching unit in South Africa, have won the United Nation’s Inspiration and Action Award, a top prize for environmental work.
There are 26 Black Mambas and they’ve been on the beat in the bush since 2013, long before the untimely death of Cecil the Lion at the hands of a celebrity dentist. So far they’ve helped to arrest six poachers, shut down five poacher camps and removed more than 1,000 snares used to illegally capture animals on the reserve.
They take their name from a ferocious and deadly African snake and patrol the Balule Private Game Reserve in western South Africa by night. They work for three weeks at a time and walk 20 miles, often longer, during the day. They use a vehicle at night because it’s too dangerous on foot.
Apparently, the women know the land so well that even a stone out of place is enough to alert them to the presence of poachers.
It’s a risky business. They have to face the poachers, who are often heavily armed and might not be too happy to see them getting in the way of their lucrative catch. But they’re not scared.
‘I am not afraid. I know what I am doing and I know why I am doing it,’ Leitah Mkhabela, one of the rangers, told Timemagazine, ‘If you see the poachers you tell them not to try, tell them we are here and it is they who are in danger.’
Stopping poachers in their tracks is particularly important in South Africa, where 1,215 endangered rhinos were killed in 2014.
It’s not just poachers that the Mambas have to face though, there’s also the park’s other inhabitants to consider. Elephants wander at night. Lions and leopards hunt at night.
Siphiwe Sithole, who runs the Black Mamba operation centre, told PBS Newshour in the US that it isn’t easy. ‘Knowing that there is dangerous animals, you just think, I don’t know when I am going to face a lion. I don’t know when I’m going to face a rhino, so, yes, the first time when I go, I was afraid.’
Fear doesn’t get in their way, though. Their aim is to protect rhinoceros and other endangered species that the poachers come in search of, hoping to make a quick buck.
‘At first, I was scared,’ another Mamba says. ‘But each and every time when you go out, you get used to it, and I’m loving it.’
The Mambas have put themselves in danger and saved a hell of a load of animals, making a huge difference in their community. Maybe someone could send that dentist to have a chat with them?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.