Meet The Black Mambas, South Africa's Majority-Female Anti-Poaching Unit

"I am strong. I am a woman. And I bite like a Mamba!" 22-year-old Leitah, pictured above, told photographer Julia Gunther.

Leitah is a proud member of the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, stationed on and around the Balule Nature Reserve in South Africa, located near the Kruger Reserve, home to the critically endangered black rhino as well as the endangered white rhino. Along with 23 other women and two men, Leitah spends 21 days a month patrolling the reserve, teaching locals about wilderness preservation, and keeping an eye out for poaching activities.  

Since 2008, Berlin-born photographer Gunther has been immersed in a personal project she calls "Proud Women of Africa," in which she documents the everyday lives of extraordinary women. "Women who have fought, survived, overcome or simply ignored the obstacles that life has thrown at them," Gunther specified in an email to The Huffington Post. "[They] never gave up. All of the women in my pictures have suffered in some way: they’ve been ostracized by society, are desperately poor, or have experienced terrible injustice. But they are also all still proud. Proud of who they are, of their lives and the love they represent." Since the unit's inception in 2013, conditions have radically improved for endangered rhinos throughout the area.

The number of snaring and illegal bush-meat incidents have reduced by 75 percent, nine poacher incursions were detected and the offenders were subsequently arrested. Most impressively, according to the United Nations, not a single rhino has been poached in ten months, while other reserves have lost around two dozen. The Mambas efforts were recently recognized by the United Nations who awarded them the much-deserved 2015 Champion of the Earth Award. 

Through her work, Gunther aims to spread the stirring tale of the Black Mambas far and wide. "I hope to make people aware of what these women are risking and doing for all of us," 

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 she said. "They are trying to protect animals that a few generations after us might only be able to admire in a zoo."

Gunther acknowledges that the success of the Black Mamba Unit depends on circumstances that extend beyond their bravery and enthusiasm. They need our help, in the forms of fuel and mechanics, staff and uniforms, airtime and food. "But more that anything," Gunther concluded, "they need our attention and respect." 

 Arts Writer, Priscilla Frank

The Huffington Post

More than anything, they need our attention and respect."

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