I’m on patrol with the forest rangers of Gola rainforest national park. I’m spending two days with them, gathering data and hopefully preventing poaching as well as illegal mining and subsistence farming within the park. My aim is to get to know the rangers and experience a day in their life. I want to know what challenges they face as well as what gives them the most satisfaction at the end of each day.

The rangers are friendly from the offset, but I have the feeling they are discussing me, the “Puimoi” (white man), in their local language of Mende. I sense something’s up. It later becomes obvious, they’re testing me. The rangers begin frequently changing the pace, starting slow and sprinting off, testing to see if I can keep up.

We walk down cleared paths at speed, occasionally veering off into the dense jungle. I can feel their eyes on me at all times, putting me through my paces, as I juggle cameras with branches and clamber over submerged logs. Will this “Puimoi” become a liability?

Thankfully we make it to the camp together, get a fire started and take off our wet clothes. The rangers noticeably relax towards me by the end of the patrol and are talking much more freely now. They don’t hold back when I ask them about the challenges they face, everything from wearing out their footwear on the tough terrain to GPS receivers breaking when they’re on patrol.

I ask how their communities view their roles as rangers. They tell me that some of the local people don’t always understand the rangers’ role and how they protect the forest for the benefit of the communities. This won’t change overnight, but what I’ve seen elsewhere on my trip gives me confidence that the community development projects and education work that the RSPB and its partners supports are changing attitudes.

The wider reality is these men are viewed by many conservationists as the “hands-on heroes”. Some of the people they catch undertaking illegal activities are armed and while the team are passionate about saving the rainforest, they would never go into a situation that was unsafe. Their training, coupled with a genuine pride in the forest, ensures that poachers, miners and illegal farmers are stopped and handed over to the authorities.

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