The Mulberry Mongoose workshop, on the edge of Zambia's South Luangwa National Park, are taking a readily available, anti-poaching by-product - tangles of thick steel wire from snare traps and fashioning it into jewellery.

This empowers the women who live by the national park while providing funds for park conservation.

While wildlife poaching tends to be associated with guns and ivory, in most of Africa, bush meat poachers usually use crude snares.

These are home-made loops of metal designed to trap the legs and necks of unsuspecting animals.

Simple, vicious and indiscriminate, they trap anything from antelope to elephants and kill tens of thousands of animals very cruelly every year.

In South Luangwa alone, anti-poaching patrols have recovered more than 10,000 snares in the last 15 years and rescued dozens of injured animals.

The courageous park rangers from Conservation South Luangwa patrol the bush for up to ten days at a time.

They will often risk their lives, to prevent poaching.

They collect snares and deliver them to Mulberry Mongoose.

The ladies here transform the snares into something beautiful, which takes hours of effort and care.

A single snare bead takes an hour of crafting, with wooden beads and delicately dotted guinea fowl feathers from local farmers.

Tour operator Expert Africa arranges visits to Mulberry Mongoose.

Useful links

www.mulberrymongoose.com

www.expertafrica.com