Akashinga rangers have transformed the fight against illegal wildlife poaching
“We found something far more powerful than biceps and bullets,” says the Australian founder of the Akashinga ranger force. How did these women turn the tide against wildlife poaching?
The fugitive moves confidently through the crowd under glowering skies full of rain. He escaped custody three months ago, and with his bush skills there’s no need to be in town – but a big soccer match has drawn him out. He’s among friends here in Nyamakate, in Zimbabwe’s remote Zambezi Valley; many of them are customers who buy his bushmeat poached from the adjoining national park. He also knows informers are in the crowd, and even on the pitch – people who want to give him up to authorities. Plenty of them. Catching bad guys is a growth industry in the Zambezi Valley these days.
If he’s checked the fixture for the day, he will know that a team from Akashinga, an all-female squad of anti-poaching rangers, is playing netball on an adjoining field. The Akashinga rangers (the name means “The Brave Ones” in the local Shona language) have made over 1100 arrests since beginning operations in the area in 2017. This day at the footy should end in another.
The scene provides a window into a different way of conserving African wildlife. Akashinga is not a foreign charity defending the wildlife from the community. It’s the community, led by its women, policing itself. This has transformed the local economy and secured biodiversity for future generations.
Anti-poaching rangers are normally recruited from communities far away from their operational areas, in order to reduce the potential for corruption and collusion with poachers. In contrast, the Akashinga model, designed and commanded by white ex-military types, creates a local force to protect wildlife from populations like Nyamakate.
“The UN Population Division tells us there’s going to be two billion people on the African continent by 2040,” says Akashinga’s founder, a former Australian soldier named Damien Mander. “That’s an increase of more than 500 million people in 15 years. It’s not going to be bigger fences and more guns that decide the future of conservation in Africa. It’s going to be people and the decisions they make. So the challenge for us became to find the most impactful way to work with communities. And there was an overwhelming body of evidence that told us that this was female empowerment,” he says. Everything changed from there.
“We haven’t had a single incident of corruption now in seven years with the women. In a country [Zimbabwe] that ranks 157 out of 180 countries in the Global Corruption Perception Index, Denmark being the number one as the least corrupt country. So if you can come here and remove corruption from whatever you’re trying to do, you’re already halfway home.”
The Melbourne-born Mander is taking his vision right across Africa, having expanded the Akashinga model across 4.45 million hectares in five countries with a staff of 600-plus. Mander is a former Australian Navy clearance diver and special forces sniper who was deployed in Iraq for three years. He also worked as a private contractor protecting diplomats and training Iraqi police. Since a trip through southern Africa in 2009, he has ploughed his life savings into creating Akashinga.
He aims to be protecting 12 million hectares of at-threat African wilderness – an area about twice the size of Tasmania – by the end of the decade. “In times where the world is looking for solutions to climate change, protecting nature is the best answer we have. This is local impact with global significance,” Mander says.
Today he is hosting an important donor on the sidelines of the match. Philanthropist Judith Neilson is visiting from Australia and wants to back Akashinga with another generous donation. She has already poured $4 million into the venture. The fugitive’s presence is an opportunity to demonstrate how Neilson’s money is being spent.
“Having grown up in Zimbabwe, I’m especially passionate about supporting projects that uplift and empower communities there,” Neilson says. “When I met Damien and heard his story there was no way I couldn’t get involved. I believe in Akashinga because they put local people, and particularly women, at the heart of conservation. By bringing communities along on the journey, they create a genuine sense of local ownership. Anti-poaching is such a dangerous business. I am in awe of the Akashinga rangers and their bravery.”
Akashinga is Mander’s vision and he carefully curates its media image. However, this is not a made-for-media moment and Mander isn’t calling the shots, it’s the daily work of Akashinga. Once, Mander loomed large over everything but he has delegated a lot to the team on the ground as he travels the world spreading his vision of the future.
Akashinga’s netball players are thrashing their hapless opposition. The rangers are fit, hard and focused from their day jobs in the bush, so it’s hardly a contest. Ranger Supervisor, Sergeant Major Wadzanai “Wadza” Munemo watches the game. Word of the fugitive reaches her and she’s in charge of tactics. Wadza commands 66 rangers and is a veteran of hundreds of operations. Last year, she was part of a team that took down two police officers who were trying to illegally sell a pangolin. The world’s most trafficked mammal sells for around $US7,300 on the black market.
The Nyamakate soccer team, sponsored by Akashinga, includes a number of poachers-turned-informers. Undercover operatives from Akashinga’s Wildlife Crimes Unit are on the sidelines, too.
It’s a delicate situation. Wadza knows that making an arrest in a public place can be tricky and divisive. So she gives the order to keep the suspect under surveillance. If he can be detained quietly and handed over to the police that would be best. “We don’t want this football match turning into a game of rugby,” she says. Akashinga has a deep relationship with Nyamakate. The Australian Government and international donors have funded the local health clinic, water upgrades at the secondary school, and the wages of dozens of locals as rangers and support staff at Akashinga’s camp 10km away in the scrub. Wadza doesn’t want to risk that goodwill with an ugly takedown during the soccer match.
Three months earlier, the poacher killed a kudu – a kind of antelope – and it was a cruel, gruesome death. The traditional hunting method involves spearing the animal then setting a pack of dogs to chase it through the thick forest until the spear works into the vital organs and death from blood loss ensues. The man butchered the carcass and sold the bushmeat into the community. It’s a common practice, and it’s having a terrible effect on wildlife populations across the continent.
The poacher was arrested and charged by the Zimbabwe Republic Police but, facing a jail term, he escaped custody and disappeared into the forest. Now he’s back home at Nyamakate. He is bold enough to attend the soccer match organised by the very people who want to put him in jail, Akashinga.
There’s no score in the first half when the skies open on the crowd of more than a thousand people. It’s steady and soaking; enough to have saved the local maize crops had it fallen six weeks earlier. Now the locals will harvest little, and will rely on famine relief until they can plant again in November, rains permitting.
The grader that was meant to flatten the pitch never showed, and so the bumpy surface soon turns into a quagmire. No one minds and the players careen into the spectators on the sidelines as they slide for the heavy ball. The poacher is enjoying this afternoon out of the forest. Maybe he’s making a few deals.
Bush meat poached from the national park – typically antelopes and small mammals – has long been an important source of protein for local people. People like him have long been respected by many locals, even though poaching now carries a maximum nine-year jail sentence. There’s a tradition of venerating hunters who can take down an elephant or large antelope from the herd with just a spear and a pack of dogs. It’s dangerous work and a far cry from popular images of poachers driving around in vehicles armed with high-powered weapons.
Since Akashinga’s advent, though, attitudes towards poaching have dramatically changed in Nyamakate. It’s a matter of economics. The rangers are each paid a monthly salary of $US1100, much of which is spent locally. For the first time, the net profit to the community from not poaching animals is greater than from poaching them. Women and their children have something to aspire to beyond subsistence farming. Mander says the Akashinga rangers are helping communities to re-engage with the wild fauna they live alongside.
For millennia, the Shona people lived in balance with nature. They identified themselves with animal totems passed down through the male line. They were not allowed to hunt and eat their own totem, and people did not marry within their totem. These cultural practices continue to this day.
In the 19th century, European settlers drove the people from their lands to create national parks where trophy hunting was carried out on an industrial scale. These days, many people have no option but to live on overcrowded marginal land alongside the national parks.
In 2009, Akashinga took over a long-term lease of 33,000ha bordering Mana Pools National Park in order to create a buffer zone for wildlife between the community and the wilderness areas. The rangers patrol this area every day and Akashinga’s Wildlife Crime Unit has cultivated sources of information in the community on the poaching activities.
“The poachers were living in the national parks and they would only come out to sell [their meat] and they would be back in there,” says one Wildlife Crimes Unit operative who wishes to remain anonymous. “After four years we thought, ‘We are not catching these guys, we have to do something different’. So we put the word out that we were looking for people who could track, and obviously the poachers know how to track. And we got 130 applicants, so we interviewed them over three days and it was very interesting. We were asking them about the number of animals they killed and it gave us a very good picture of what they were up to. I mean, they were killing elephants with dogs and spears. And we also learnt that each group was killing up to 20 buck [antelope] per year. They were respected among the communities for what they did.”
Now these top ex-poachers are working for Akashinga and they are extremely motivated, says Wadza as she keeps one eye on the operation unfolding at the soccer match.
Although attached to Akashinga, the Wildlife Crimes Unit has a nationwide remit. Turning the poachers into gamekeepers has yielded positive results. “We selected the top poachers and, like we did with the ivory, we got rid of the top guys first and then we start getting rid of the guys who are not so good at poaching and we started having a good deal of success,” Wadza explains.
The Wildlife Crimes Unit can follow whatever credible leads come forth. The team members have been involved in operations against sophisticated foreign syndicates poaching rhino horn, ivory and lately pangolins, right down to the bush meat trade that occupies Akashinga in Nyamakate. Mander has forged great relationships with the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority.
“The Zimbabwe Government is our partner in everything we do,” he says.
In the second half of the soccer match, the score is still nil-nil and crowd has swelled to more than 2000. The rain is pelting down, the beer is flowing and a DJ on a flatbed truck is pumping out loud, fast African music. The tempo of the game seems to match. It’s a chaotic scene and the Wildlife Crimes Unit team is having trouble keeping sight of the suspect in the happy, rolling throng.
Finally, Nyamakate scores a goal and the locals erupt with joy; half the crowd invades the pitch, among them the poacher. When order is restored and the game resumes, he has slipped away, but Wadza is not deterred.
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“He was lucky today, maybe he was tipped off. We’ll get another chance soon enough.”
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Nyamakate scores another goal to clinch the match and the crowd goes home happy. The poacher may have escaped this time, but for Mander the event is another trust-building moment with the community.
“Demilitarisation led to us cutting our operating costs by two-thirds,” says Mander. “So, instead of paying for helicopters, bullets, night-vision gear and drones, we’re now spending our money on building relationships with the communities through the women that were raised here and are raising their own families. So we found something far more powerful than biceps and bullets.”
Overnight, Wadza works her sources and soon picks up the trail. It turns out the poacher has another reason to be in town: he wants to attend church. There will be a sequel to this operation. For the moment, the action swings to Camp 15 where the selection process for new recruits is taking place over four days: 47 local women aged from 18 to 35 are vying for 21 places on the ranger team.
“Life begins when fear ends,” says Akashinga drill instructor Tendai Kadohwata in a hoarse whisper. Three days of shouting instructions and encouragement at a new class of recruits has destroyed her voice.
Kadohwata and the other instructors have given it everything. They’ve sung, danced and cajoled the women to keep going through this arduous selection trial. The message is clear: If I can get through, so can you.
“It is my passion to pass on my knowledge to my peers in our own language and culture. I think it means more if they hear it from one of our village daughters,” Kadohwata says.
The women are put through gruelling bush runs, workouts and team-building exercises like constructing a makeshift stretcher to carry a mock casualty back to base. A few recruits drop out exhausted along the way.
“We are taking them to their limit, and then showing them there is something beyond that,” says trainer Ruben De Kock. At 19, he was leading South African troops into battle on horseback and motorcycles in Angola. After the military, he joined the male-dominated ranger training industry. While there have been women rangers on the frontline since the 1990s, many of De Kock’s peers scoffed at the idea of all-female squads. “The challenge is that conservation [in southern Africa] has been a very closed society and only now it’s opening up,” he says. “[There has been] very entrenched thinking. Akashinga has surprised a lot of people.”
Two days later, the Wildlife Crimes Unit getsword that the poacher who eluded them at the soccer match is going to attend a church service between 9pm and midnight at the primary school. It’s the Apostolic faith and the worshippers wear long white robes and carry staffs. The classroom will be packed with hundreds of the faithful.
Tracey, the field agent in charge, leads two undercover teams dressed in the same white robes as the worshippers. Their plan is to mingle with the crowd and, at the right moment, grab the suspect. However, the poacher is taking precautions: his friends are acting as sentries outside the classroom. They recognise the approaching agents and bar their way into the building, giving the poacher time to get away through another exit. Tracey deploys agents to the roads in and out of town, but the poacher has vanished on foot into the night.
This second near-miss is frustrating, and it demonstrates the challenge Akashinga faces. The poacher had help to escape; not everyone in the community is on board yet. The Wildlife Crimes Unit learns later that he has crossed the border into Zambia, figuring it’s too “hot” for him in Nyamakate. It’s a small win.
Akashinga’s strike rate is astonishing: of 1169 arrests, there has been an 82 per cent conviction rate. If the poacher comes back, there to greet him will be Akashinga’s round-the-clock patrols armed with AR-15 weapons, plus tracking dogs.
Poachers here are often armed, too, though they rarely shoot their prey for fear of the gunshot giving away their location. There have been exchanges of fire with rangers in the past, so the patrols are ready for contact at all times. But Mander says the women have a natural way of de-escalating confrontations so arrests can be made with minimal force rather than a firefight.
The selection process ends with an interview before all the rangers. Trainer Ruben De Kock poses the same challenge to each hopeful. “OK, you’re right-handed. I want you to close both your eyes, then open the right eye and keep the left closed.” Most struggle to do it, to much laughter in the room. “You must go home and practise that for when you’re looking down the sights of your weapon,” says De Kock.
Firearms are essential tools in the fight against poaching. According to the Thin Green Line Foundation, about 150 rangers lose their lives across Africa each year. However, guns alone won’t win the war. Akashinga must never be an invading force, says Mander. “Our focus is social impact centralised around the empowerment of women to motivate conservation at scale across the continent. It’s working, but it took 20 years of conflict to arrive here.
“There’s an invisible, ever shifting formula of success somewhere in the middle. A formula of working with the communities as the key partners to a point that it motivates conservation and they see the overall benefits, versus it being a burden. And remember, it’s hard to get a group of people, many of whom don’t know where tomorrow’s meal is coming from, to see the long-term benefits of wildlife and nature. And so our job is to promote the short-term and mid-term gains, while we collectively have the long term in sight,” Mander says.
Each operation is a learning experience. If the fugitive poacher returns home, he will find he’s no longer on friendly territory.
“He was lucky this time. Next time it’s our turn,” says Wadza.
