【编者按】“守望野生动物”是美国国家地理2019年6月的特别专题，通过3个小专题来呼吁人们保护野生动物。
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Sgt. Vimbai Kumire holds up a photo of a dead leopard on her phone. She stares at the image as the truck she’s riding in bounces over the rutted road. The cat’s neck is slashed and its bloody paws hang slack. “Before this job, I didn’t think about the animals,” she says.
Now Kumire, 33, and her all-female wildlife ranger team, the Akashinga, are among the animals’ fiercest protectors. The rangers are an arm of the nonprofit International Anti-Poaching Foundation, which manages Zimbabwe’s Phundundu Wildlife Area, a 115-square-mile former trophy hunting tract in the Zambezi Valley ecosystem. The greater region has lost thousands of elephants to poachers over the last two decades. The Akashinga (“brave ones” in the Shona language) patrol Phundundu, which borders 29 communities. The proximity of people and animals sometimes leads to conflicts such as the one Kumire’s headed to now, involving the leopard.
At the scene, Kumire wades into an angry crowd. Standing five feet two inches tall, she could easily get lost in the chaos, but she moves calmly and confidently through the emotionally charged group, speaking softly but firmly. Ten injured men slowly come forward. One has a bandage on his cheek, another’s arm is wrapped in blood-stained cotton. Eight others nursing scratches and punctures cluster around her.
Conservation officials had collected the leopard’s carcass and accused the men of wrongdoing, inflaming the crowd. The injured men say the leopard attacked, but based on their minor wounds, the rangers are skeptical this was unprovoked self-defense. Killing wildlife without a permit is a criminal offense. But the leopard’s skin, teeth, claws, and bones—worth hundreds of dollars on the black market—represent a month’s salary in Zimbabwe’s impoverished economy.
With the carcass secured and the events surrounding the leopard’s death duly recorded, the team’s job now is to remind the community they’re here to help with wildlife-human interactions. The women load the wounded men into their truck and take them to the local clinic.
Scenes like this are the essence of the Akashinga’s mission and familiar scenarios for its founder, Damien Mander, a tattoo-covered Australian and former special forces soldier who has trained game rangers in Zimbabwe for more than a decade. His experiences serving in Iraq and on the front lines of Africa’s poaching war have taught him that change—be it peace among humans or attitudes about wildlife—can’t happen without buy-in from the community. “Local people have a vested interest in where they come from, where they live,” he says. “Foreigners don’t.”
With that local-first mentality, Mander turned to Phundundu’s surrounding villages—specifically their women—to fill the ranks of the Akashinga. After years of training male rangers, he concluded that in some ways women were better suited for the job. He found they were less susceptible to bribery from poachers and more adept at de-escalating potentially violent situations. He also knew that research shows working women in developing countries invest 90 percent of their income in their families, compared with 35 percent for men. In this regard, the rangers demonstrate a key conservation principle: Wildlife is worth more to the community alive than it is dead at the hands of poachers.
Mander sought women who had suffered trauma: AIDS orphans, victims of sexual assault or domestic abuse. Kumire joined after her husband abandoned her and their two daughters. Who better to task with protecting exploited animals, Mander reasoned, than women who had suffered from exploitation? He modeled his selection course on special forces training, subjecting the women to three days of nonstop exercises designed to test their teamwork skills while being wet, cold, hungry, and tired. Of 37 recruits who started the course, 16 were chosen for the training program; only three quit. Years ago Mander ran a similar course for 189 men. At the end of day one, all but three had quit. “We thought we were putting [the women] through hell,” Mander says. “But it turns out, they’ve already been through it.”
文琶·库米瑞班长举起手机，里面有一张花豹尸体的照片。随着乘坐的卡车于凹凸不平的路上颠簸前行时，库米瑞一直盯着那张照片看。这只大猫的脖子被砍伤，淌血的爪子软趴趴地垂着。「做这份工作之前，我从来没有关心过野生动物。」她说。
如今，33岁的库米瑞是全为女姓的阿卡辛加野生动物巡护队的一员，她们是这些动物勇猛的保护者。阿卡辛加是非营利组织国际反盗猎基金会的分支，基金会负责管理辛巴威的封敦度野生动物区。这块面积300平方公里的土地，曾是尚比西河谷生态系内的战利品狩猎区。阿卡辛加（在修纳语中的意思是「勇者」）巡护队负责巡逻毗邻29个社区的封敦度。人与动物比邻而居有时候会引发冲突，库米瑞现在正前往处理的花豹死亡事件就是一例。
抵达事发现场后，库米瑞走入愤怒的人群里。受伤的十名男子缓缓走上前来。其中一人脸颊上有绷带，另一人手臂包著有血渍的棉布。围着她的其他八人则正照料着身上的抓刺伤。
保育官员已收走花豹尸体，并指控这些男子违法，引起群情激愤。伤者说花豹攻击他们，不过由于他们身上只有轻伤，巡护员认为这可能不是正当防卫。未持许可而杀害野生动物是刑事犯罪。然而，花豹的毛皮、牙齿、爪子和骨头在黑市价值数百美元，在经济贫困的津巴布韦相当于一个月的薪资。
在花豹尸体已收妥、整起事件也做完笔录后，巡护队剩下的工作便是告诉社区民众，他们来此是为了协助处理人类与野生动物间的互动。巡护队员让伤者坐上卡车，带他们到当地诊所就医。
这类场面正代表阿卡辛加巡护队的使命本质，也是其创始人戴米安.曼德熟悉的场景，这个全身刺青的澳大利亚人以前是特种部队士兵，在津巴布韦训练野生动物巡护员超过十年。他曾在伊拉克服役，也站在非洲对抗盗猎的第一线，这些经验让他了解，不管是要让人类和平共处还是扭转对野生动物的态度，少了当地社区认同，改变不可能发生。
曼德秉持当地人优先的想法，向封敦度野生动物区的周边村庄招募阿卡辛加巡护队成员，特别是妇女。他训练男性巡护员多年下来的结论是，在某些方面，女性更能胜任这份工作。他发现女性较不易受盗猎者贿赂，而且更擅长缓和可能引发暴力冲突的场面。就这点而言，女性巡护员体现了一项关键的保育原则：对于社区来说，活着的野生动物比死在盗猎者手下的野生动物有价值。
曼德特意寻找受过创伤的女性，包括爱滋孤儿、性侵或家暴受害者。库米瑞在丈夫遗弃她和两个女儿之后加入巡护队。曼德的想法是，有谁比曾遭受剥削的女性更能保护受剥削的动物呢？他根据特种部队的训练内容设计选拔课程，让这些女性接受三天马不停蹄的操练，测试她们在潮湿、寒冷、饥饿和疲劳状况下的团队合作技能。参与课程的37名新成员中，有16人获选加入培训计划，只右返家探视的皮姆萝丝.马祖如正在和女儿玩耍。马祖如和许多阿卡辛加巡护队员一样，在成为巡护员之前是家暴受害者。如今，她和其他巡护员一起接受有关自我价值等主题的谘商。左瓦札纳伊.穆内莫和另一位巡护员在保育区巡逻时碰到一头大象，这片土地曾是战利品狩猎区的一部分。巡护队员刚开始投入工作时，有时一周只看见一次动物。现在，她们每天都会遇见动物。zinio保育的勇者109有三人退出。几年前，曼德曾让189名男性接受类似的选拔课程。第一天结束时，只有三人留下来。「我们以为对这些女性来说，这些训练是地狱般的折磨，」曼德说：「但结果证明，她们早就经历过这样的磨难了。」
The next morning the sun rises over the Akashinga camp—a dozen green tents arrayed on a hilltop that offers a panoramic view of the region. The women eat breakfast, and Mander briefs them on the coming night’s two raids—one on the compound of a man said to possess an unlicensed rifle used to kill wildlife, the other on the home of a suspected poacher said to be trying to sell a leopard skin.
They spend the morning practicing, ensuring each ranger knows her position. Then Mander gets behind the wheel, four rangers jump in the back with a local police officer, who will oversee the raid, and the team sets off.
It’s after midnight when they finally approach the home of the suspected owner of the unlicensed rifle. Mander speeds into the compound and slams on the brakes. The rangers leap out and take up the positions they had practiced. One raps on the front door. Eventually the suspect allows them inside, where they find the dried skins of several duikers, a small antelope species. The man is handcuffed and loaded into the truck.
It’s a clear, black night, and the Milky Way stretches across the sky. The rangers have been up for nearly 24 hours. But the leopard skin seller remains at large. “We are not tired,” Kumire says. “We don’t tire until our job is done.”
Before they return to their base the next morning, they’ll arrest the alleged leopard poacher. The next night, they’ll catch a suspected elephant poacher. In the hours between, they’ll continue their patrols, removing several poachers’ snares. It’s results like this that show Mander his instinct was right. “Women like this can change everything.”
隔天早上，巡护队员吃早餐时，曼德向她们简报当晚要进行的两场突袭行动：一次要搜查一名男子的宅院，据报此人持有一支无照步枪，用来猎杀野生动物，另一次要到一名企图贩卖豹皮的盗猎嫌疑人家中搜查。
巡护队员演练了一个早上，以确保每个人都知道自己被分派的位置。接着曼德坐上驾驶座，四名巡护员与一名负责监督的当地警察一起跳上卡车后座，团队就出发了。
他们驶近无照持有步枪的嫌疑人家时，已经过了午夜。曼德加速冲进屋院后立刻急踩刹车。巡护队员跳下车，照演练的位置就定位。嫌疑人允许他们进入屋内，他们在里面找到几张干燥的遁羚皮，遁羚是一种小羚羊。男子被戴上手铐、押上卡车。
巡护队员已将近24小时没阖眼了。但豹皮贩子仍未落网。「我们不累，」库米瑞说：「工作完成之前，我们不会累。」
隔天早上返回基地之前，她们已逮捕了涉嫌盗猎花豹的男子。那日晚上，她们又逮到一名大象盗猎嫌疑犯。在这中间的几个小时，她们持续巡逻，并移除了好几个盗猎者架设的陷井。这样的结果证明曼德的直觉是对的。「这样的女性能够改变一切。」
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