Mopane Snare Wire

Just as the Mopane tree brings optimism to the people and animals of Zimbabwe, as the first tree to burst into leaf after the long dry season, so too does our range of snarewire jewellery bring hope. The Victoria Falls Anti Poaching Unit (VFAPU ) and the Wilderness Scorpions Anti Poaching Unit remove over 200kg of snarewire a year from Victoria Falls City and the surrounding park’s areas. The majority of these snares are placed by people who subsist well below the poverty line and poach to feed families and create income from selling illegal bushmeat and animal products. It is our mission to reshape these people’s lives by turning the snarewire into a beautiful jewellery product, so that they can earn viable incomes and, through education programs, come to see the true value of our country’s wildlife resources. To transform this harsh, rusted, and deadly wire into objects of desirable beauty has been a journey into the past for techniques and now into the future for design. Local jewellers Ndau Collection team members Joe Mutoka and Ngoni Chivasa came together with Children in Wilderness to develop methods of working with the inflexible material as a beginning point. Well-known designer Christie Halsted has now taken the lead, working with Obert Monga, a member of the Ruoko artists’ project, to create a wearable collection of jewellery. Together, based at the Jafuta Foundation Centers of Hope, they are training a group of young men and women from the vulnerable rural community of Dibutibu to rework the wire into pieces of jewellery. The women of the Batoka Creatives make beaded adornments for the pieces and hope is created from loss. Every piece of jewellery that you purchase from this range is not only collectable, but in buying a piece, you also support a group of craftspeople that in turn support villages of families. This income injection, along with the educational training given means that the need and desire for subsistence poaching will be drastically reduced. A portion of the funds earnt are donated back to the anti-poaching teams, to assist in combating the large-scale commercial poaching that is the true threat to our endangered wildlife.