How an all-female anti-poaching unit in South Africa used smartphones to protect wildlife

In South Africa's Olifants West Nature Reserve, rangers can only do so much to stop poachers. But thanks to new technology, they've recently had extra help from people all over the world.

Staff at the reserve installed smartphones mounted in protective cases to livestream footage of the park. Tens of thousands of volunteers tuned in to the feeds and monitored the area for poachers, alerting the park rangers to illegal activity in real time.

The pilot project, called Wildlife Watch, was a joint venture between the reserve, tech giant Samsung and Africam, a company that runs wildlife livestreams in Africa. The project just wrapped up, and the park is hoping to announce next steps soon. 

Leitah Mkhabela works with the Black Mambas, an all-female anti-poaching unit that monitors the Olifants West Nature Reserve. She spoke to As It Happens guest host Helen Mann about the project. Here is part of their conversation. 

How much of a game-changer is it for you to have all of these extra eyes around the world looking out for poachers in your park? 

It is changing a lot since the Black Mambas … put their boots in the ground. But then with the technology changes, we are gaining more eyes and ears in the reserve. 

If I'm someone at home and I want to try this out, I want to be part of the solution, what do I look for? 

Suspicious activities that you can look for is … an animal that is limping, or you can spot an animal that has a snare on its neck, because they can kill an animal, and then you can spot poachers there.

You can also learn about different behaviours of animals. You can learn about the bush itself. You can see rivers and be able to spot hippos and crocodiles.

And then you guys can also see the Black Mambas on their patrol.

And are there sounds that I should listen for? 

What the Black Mamba focus [on] is the sound of cars, gunshots, people talking in the bush, because that's where we know that we need to act and there must be something that is happening. 

So if I were to see something or hear something that I thought was suspicious, how would I alert the Black Mambas? 

The people around the world can report anything they see or hear directly, even animals that are injured or interesting sightings like new rhino babies, new lion cubs, and then they can take pictures or videos from the cameras and send them also. 

Can you tell me about any particular incident that comes to mind where the phones were used and worked to save some animal? 

Yeah, we have had a gunshot reported and injured lion. Also the sound of voices of people at night, we could follow up and verify and prevent any crime. 

Now, the pandemic has had such an effect on people's ability to to move around. Of course, tourism is a big thing, I imagine, in the park. So what impact has the pandemic had on poaching there?

The impact the pandemic had on poaching is that people were not able to come inside our reserve and kill the rhinos because the economy was blocked, so they were not able to take the rhino horn and sell it outside South Africa. 

So it has made a big difference. We haven't lost any rhino [on the reserve]. And also bushmeat poaching, so many people from the villages that are nearby the reserve were very much responsible and they were not coming inside the reserve. 

We have seen that people are now gaining their knowledge and they are using it, that they mustn't destroy the environment. 

Tell me a bit more about the Black Mambas. This is an all-female anti-poaching group. Where did the idea come from to have this group of women monitor the park?

The idea came from when Craig Spencer, the founder of the Black Mambas, [had] seen that we've got so many male people in the industry … and there were no women.

So it was all about raising awareness, giving it back to the community, and [letting] women stand up for themselves and make a change. So that's where it started when a part of [the reserve] was attacked by poachers, where they killed a few rhinos. And then that's where the project started. 

The thing was to give it back to the community. Women that are not able to further their studies can do something different and they can do it better than men or better than using [a] weapon. So that's the way I got involved into the Black Mamba project. 

And it has been so successful because we have decreased rhino poaching by [62] per cent and bushmeat poaching by [89] per cent. 

It benefits the animals, obviously. What about for you? What has it done for you to be a member of the Black Mambas? 

So many things have changed in my life. I am a role model in my community. So many young kids are looking up to us and they want to gain more knowledge from us. And I have seen that so many ladies in my age, they have seen the success of the Black Mamba so they want to join the project and they want to grab every opportunity that they get.

Women are standing up for themselves now. They are grabbing every opportunity. They are entering into the men's world, doing everything that they think they can do. And they don't allow anybody to underestimate them or tell them that you can't do this.

The Black Mambas has proven to the South African [people] that women can enter into the men's world and bring change. 

Written by Sarah Jackson and Sheena Goodyear with files from Reuters. Produced by Ryan Chatterjee and Jeanne Armstrong. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.