One of the most positive advancements in the world of animal conservation in Africa is the creation of exclusively women ranger units. AOC has tracked this development for several years, since I first read about Faye Cuevas — another Minnesota-born woman out and about in the world.

Cuevas worked in U.S. military intelligence for 17 years and has hunted terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also helped fight the Lord's Resistance Army of brutal Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony. Today Cuevas is the strategic, on-the-ground brains behind Kenya’s anti-poaching initiative.

More about Faye later, because today we turn our attention to South Africa’s Black Mamba, featured in the January 2021 issue of Vogue Italia.

The women of the Black Mamba Anti-poaching Unit are the rangers who watch over the animals of the Balule Nature Reserve, in the Greater Kruger Area, South Africa. The area is fenceless, to aid the movement of animals throughout the majestic terrain. Women featured in these images (but not necessarily the videos) Yenzekile Mathebula 28 years old, Nocry Mzimba 26, Qolile Mathebula 26, Naledi Malungane 19, Tsakane Nxumalo 25.

Vogue Italia interviews Craig Spencer of Transfrontier Africa NPC (a non-profit company that manages protected areas) and that protects the borders of the reserve, 62,000 hectares. South African photographer Pieter Hugo is behind the lens for ‘Guardian Angels’ with styling by Raphael Hirsch.

At a time when wildlife rangers often have their own arsenal of high-powered weapons and the latest GPS technology available, the most results-driven projects in animal conservation involve the women. Recent deaths in the Congo’s Virunga National Park have seriously raised concerns that the militarization of rangers has put them at odds with local communities.

Yes, the poachers are the bad guys. But there can also be deep resentment at a local level towards the rangers.

Initially the Black Mamba weren’t armed but increasingly, the women not only carry major weaponry but they survive military training that turns them into an elite fighting force. The women rangers aren’t the brain child of some pacifist NGO. They are nurtured by nearly-famous, anti-terrorism sharpshooters in some cases, like Australian Damien Mander,

What remains different about the women rangers Black Mambas in South Africa, the Akashinga in Zimbabwe, or Faye Cuevas’ Team Lioness in Kenya is that the women often have young children, have deep ties into local communities, have reverence for nature, and have a fearless determination to create a good life for their children, their siblings and the entire community.

“There’s a saying in Africa, ‘If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation’,” Mander says. “We’re seeing increasing evidence that empowering women is one of the greatest forces of change in the world today.”

The Black Mamba have earned the Champions of the Earth Award, the United Nations highest environmental honor.

We underscore the ripple effect of community by discovering The Bush Babies, an offshoot of the Black Mamba that is devoted to creating greater environmental awareness in communities of the Balule Private Nature Reserve. Check out the Black Mamba on Instagram.

I’ve watched the entirety of the video below, and it’s very informative on so many aspects of the challenges the Black Mamba face in the anti-poaching effort. If you would like to support this important global organization that is a paradigm for other nations around the world, visit the Black Mamba website. You can donate on this link.

Photographer Pieter Hugo Official Instagram is here. Hugo was i-D’s Artist in Residence for its 40th Anniversary Issue, where he photographed his children in lockdown.