THE CONSERVATIONIST

MY LITTLE GREEN BOOK

Lisa Grainger meets Rachel McRobb, the brave Zambian conservationist tackling ivory poachers head on

Rachel McRobb always knew that she wanted to work with animals. Born in Zambia to Scottish parents who’d come to work on the copper mines, the African bush was her playground and wild creatures her passion. ‘I loved animals, of any sort,’ she says, ‘and so all I wanted to do was look after them.’

Today, the 48-year-old is one of the most respected conservationists in Zambia: the CEO of Conservation South Luangwa and a woman who is one of the first ports of call when there’s a wildlife emergency. That might be getting a stuck baby calf out of the mud. Or taking the wire snare off the neck of a lion. Or trying to rescue an elephant wounded by ivory poachers.

Although she started the organisation on her own in 2003, with $150 from her salary and a handful of volunteers, today CSL is one of the biggest single employers in the area.

It has 120 full-time Zambian staff who work with the Department of National Parks to oversee 1,400,000 hectares of wilderness. Most are scouts who live in the bush, clearing traps and catching poachers. But it’s also got a pilot – who last year scoured 54,000km of the area by air and a K9 Dog Unit – made up of armed scouts and sniffer dogs – which in 2021 was responsible for helping to make 65 wildlife crime arrests and find $10,000 worth of ivory, bushmeat, firearms and contraband.

Perhaps most importantly, though,

Born in Zambia, Rachel McRobb has been passionate about protecting its wildlife since childhood; above and below: CSL’s team of conservationists at the heart of CSL’s operations are its community outreach staff, who go out to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts. Some days, they might be planting chilli hedges to deter elephants from raiding villagers’ crops, or erecting electric polywire fences. On others, they might be doing sponsored events to help bring in the over $1million they need a year, raised through grants, visitors and donations from organisations such as Tusk, the organisation headed by Prince William, which shortlisted her in 2016 for its coveted Tusk Conservation Award.

‘What I think I’m most proud of what we’ve achieved over the past 20 years is creating this team: of dedicated men and women who give their lives to protecting their country’s wilderness and wildlife,’ she says. ‘And bringing women into conservation. When I started out, there were very few. Now there are a lot more, who don’t have to rely on men and can make their own decisions, which has been a big culture shift.’

Her own personal life, she says, has had to take a backseat to CSL for two decades. But with her partner, Matt Becker, who is CEO of the Zambia Carnivore Programme, a conservation organisation focused on big cats, she now tries to tack time off: to go hiking with him in Montana, to explore the planet and its creatures. ‘For a long time, I worked all the time. Now CSL has the right people to take it forward, I can enjoy other things.’ For instance, during Covid when there were no tourists in the park, taking 2,458 villagers out on game drives, 57 percent of whom had never been on one before. Some days, she admits, ‘when things don’t work, or take a very long time to change and you feel like you are fighting against a machine,’ she does get frustrated. ‘But then I get up each day and see we are making a difference. And so onwards we go.’

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