Training women to fight poachers

Mander said Akashinga is a departure from the male-centric military and special-ops world in which he has long operated — what he calls “one of the ultimate boys’ clubs” — and his newer realm of conservation rangers, where the male-to-female ratio is 100 to 1.

To build his Akashinga team Mander, who had not previously trained women, sought applicants from among the most vulnerable females in rural areas. He recruited abuse survivors, abandoned wives, orphans, sex workers and single mothers — women who, he said, “weren’t victims of circumstance; they were victims of men.” Also joining the team this past December was Vimbai Kumire, the youngest daughter of Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa, reportedly as a show of her support for the women and their role in rebuilding the country.

The Akashinga recruits initially “went through 72 hours of hell,” said Mander, but only three of 37 women who entered the program dropped off after those first three days. They continued through the same paces as male rangers who train for anti-poaching work and completed an extensive program that covers camouflage and concealment, conservation ethics, crime scene preservation and crisis management. In Akashinga, they also learn how to deal with dangerous wildlife, democratic policing, firearm safety and proper use, first aid, human rights, information gathering techniques, leadership, patrolling, search and arrest, and unarmed combat.

The discipline the women displayed every day of training, and since, is also seen in their diet. All are vegans — a commitment they made to themselves and to the terms of Akashinga.

What matters, Mander said, are results, and so far their efforts are paying off. As of this writing, the Akashinga team has about 60 arrests, which have resulted in more than 41 years of jail sentences. Recent actions resulted in arrests for serious crimes related to ivory smuggling, zebra poaching and sable antelope snaring.

Mander said Akashinga has been “more effective than anything I’ve seen.” He noted too that the women have an uncanny ability to “de-escalate everything.”
https://therevelator.org/poaching-akashinga/