Backstory: In Zimbabwe, ragtag scouts vs. poachers

We smell the buffalo before we see him. When we find his massive body, it's clear he has been dead for some time. Nobody has used his meat.

"It looks like the shooter was aiming for the heart, but he shot low and it may have gotten the bottom of the lungs here," points out Charles Brightman, coordinator of the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit. "That's why this buffalo's been able to run so far, and then died later from its wounds. What a waste. It's a nice old big bull, hey?"

What a waste. It's the story of Zimbabwe these days. Six years after President Robert Mugabe encouraged the violent takeover of white-owned farmland, the country is facing acute food shortages, massive emigration, increasing political repression and more than 1,000 percent inflation. It is also facing environmental devastation.

Poaching here, both commercial and subsistence, is on the rise. Around Victoria Falls, once a top tourist destination, hungry locals are setting tens of thousands of snares to catch protected animals. Poaching gangs with high-caliber weapons are moving into the area. Bush-meat markets, where entrepreneurs illegally sell meat from impala, buffalo, and elephant, are sprouting in impoverished townships. Legal meat is too expensive.

The Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit is one small group of Zimbabweans – black and white – trying to fight this environmentally deadly trend.

Here in Victoria Falls National Park, not far from the mile-long falls and some of the fanciest safari lodges in the region, is where Mr. Brightman and the unit's scouts found the buffalo. They'd tracked it from the dozens of vultures overhead.

Brightman's rifle is cocked, and he gives one of his scouts a handgun. Poaching has become a dangerous, high-stakes business in Zimbabwe.

In the past, the unit has discovered hidden butcheries where poachers skin their catch and prepare meat for sale. The scouts have found dead rhinos with their horns cut off – a telltale sign of an international poaching syndicate that will make thousands of dollars selling horns as aphrodisiacs in Asia or as dagger handles in Yemen.

Brightman turns to three other scouts, who've been guarding the carcass: "OK, let's turn him over."

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Seven years ago, when Brightman was working as a safari guide, he found himself troubled by an increase in poaching here. When he discovered that the park service had only 10 rangers to counter hundreds of poachers, he decided to try to help. He came up with the idea of an independent antipoaching unit, funded by local businesses and hotels, that would work with the park service. He recruited scouts and convinced other players in the tourism industry to support his efforts.

At first Brightman kept his safari company going. But as Zimbabwe's decline continued, business slowed. Soon, he says, he realized that the anti-poaching efforts were more important – if he succeeded in stopping, or reducing, the killing, he'd always have a chance to restart his business. If he didn't succeed, there'd be no business anyhow.

Today he has 13 scouts, two pairs of handcuffs, a collection of hand-held radios, and an inoperable and battered 4x4 in his yard. With this, his unit attempts to patrol 12,000 acres of bush around Victoria Falls. Though Brightman often takes scouts around in his own 4x4, scouts often still have to walk to their patrol points – a waste of time, and a problem when they find a poacher deep in the bush, he says.

Brightman also tries to find alternative employment for subsistence poachers, although now any job is hard to find.

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