{"id":4037,"date":"2019-07-25T10:20:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T07:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=4037"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:26","slug":"the-all-female-anti-poaching-unit-quashing-poaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/07\/25\/the-all-female-anti-poaching-unit-quashing-poaching\/","title":{"rendered":"The all-female anti-poaching unit quashing poaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By UN Environment<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The black mamba is the most\nvenomous snake in sub-Saharan Africa. One bite can kill a person in just a few\nhours. It is also the namesake of the all-female anti-poaching unit that\noperates in the&nbsp;56,000-acre private&nbsp;Balule Nature Reserve at Kruger\nNational Park in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The name choice represents \u201cthe\nstrength of the mambas, and their quick reactions,\u201d said Valeria van der\nWesthuizen, communications manager for the Mambas. \u201cStrength of the woman in\nSouth Africa, strength of the Mamba.\u201d (Not sure why you should quote me, as it\nis not my interview).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Black Mambas were founded in\n2013 and comprise of 14 women largely from the Phalaborwa community that\nresides near the park. Prior to the group\u2019s formation, poaching for rhino horn\nand bush meat in the reserve was rampant, with poachers\u2014many who came from the\nlocal communities\u2014fetching up to US$26,000 for one horn. Leitah Mkhabela, the\nsupervisor Mamba, said that a reason for the nearby communities\u2019 involvement\nwas that they didn\u2019t feel the wildlife belonged to them, as most had never had\na chance to even see the animals. Poaching was a way to make a lot of money,\nquickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is why one of the Mambas\u2019\nmandates is to educate on the importance of conservation as well as gather\ninformation from locals about poachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe community needs to benefit\nfrom the reserves that are near,\u201d said Mkhabela, highlighting a wider ongoing\ndiscussion across Africa on protected areas. \u201cIf the game reserves can benefit\nthe local communities by providing freshwater sources or giving bursaries for\nhigher education, we are going to see a decrease in rhino and bush meat\npoaching.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unenvironment.org\/news-and-stories\/story\/sweeping-bush-protecting-land-all-female-anti-poaching-unit-quashing\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By UN Environment The black mamba is the most venomous snake in sub-Saharan Africa. One bite can kill a person in just a few hours. It is also the namesake&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}