During World Female Ranger Week, Zimbabwean journalist Edith Mugabe published a feature for 263Chat on the women reshaping conservation across the country, built around the story of Akashinga Ranger Sharai Viola Tunhira.

Sharai joined Akashinga in 2021, drawn in by wildlife documentaries and a growing conviction that she wanted to be one of the people protecting nature, not just watching it on a screen. The 263Chat piece traces her path from a family that was initially uneasy about the risks of ranger work to one that now supports her fully, and it captures a shift playing out well beyond her own household.

The article moves between voices: Akashinga CEO Stacy Crevello on the institutional barriers, from recruitment standards to workplace culture, that have historically kept women out of ranger work. Community conservationist Amos Gwema on why women rangers change what's possible in the field, from building trust with local communities to meeting legal requirements around searching female suspects. Community member Agnes Matiki on what it means to have Akashinga Rangers respond quickly when wildlife threatens a village. Isheanesu Chirisa of Women and Law in Southern Africa on why women's leadership in conservation and environmental protection are, in her view, connected goals rather than separate causes.

Sharai's own reflection on what's changed sits at the centre of it. As she put it to Edith Mugabe, "Young girls now come to me asking how they can become rangers."

That, more than any single patrol or statistic, is the piece's throughline: a role that was once treated as unlikely for women is now visibly, locally normal — enough that girls in the communities Akashinga works alongside are asking how to do it themselves.

Read Edith Mugabe's full feature on 263Chat: Beyond the Uniform: How Female Rangers Are Transforming Conservation in Zimbabwe

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