If a rhino strayed across Mozambique's wilderness border a couple of years back, its life expectancy was 24 hours. 
Today, 25 rhinos have found a safe haven in a patrolled expanse of the dangerous border region.
 It's a small but significant win and it's cause for celebration for two Australians who have made saving the rhino a personal crusade.
Damien Mander, former Royal Australian Navy clearance diver and special operations sniper, completed a dozen tours of duty in Iraq before exchanging the paramilitary training of Iraqi police for providing similar training to African rangers risking their lives to protect their nation's national heritage. 
The anti-poaching campaigner sank all his Australian assets into establishing the International Anti-Poaching Foundation in 2009. Today, his foundation is partnering with Mozambique authorities, from border police to rangers, to stop poaching.
Mr Mander's foundation is supported by the Perth-based Save African Rhino Foundation, established by London-born Nicholas Duncan, a retired local businessman.
With high-profile patrons including the Wallabies' David Pocock and former English Test cricketer David Gower, SAVE has funded projects centred on Zimbabwe and Mozambique, donating more than $100,000 to IAPF for vital equipment including four-wheel-drive trucks, motorcycles, outboard motors, GPS and satellite communications and veterinary supplies.
"It's no good using sophisticated equipment like drones to locate a group of poachers if we can't reach them with helicopters or boats in areas where there are no roads," Mr Mander told locals at a recent Perth Zoo event organised by Mr Duncan and SAVE. There were migrants from Africa in the audience but also locals who had travelled to Africa and wanted to secure the future of the incredible game they had seen.
Mr Mander's current war makes full use of knowledge and skills honed during his time in Iraq. Now he trains, motivates and serves alongside African rangers.
"I have a skill set that, unfortunately, is required to protect the animals that poachers target as part of a highly lucrative illicit trade run by international organised crime networks," he said. "There are perhaps 25,000 rhino left in Africa, 20,000 in South Africa and half of those are in a single park, Kruger National Park. "The border area in which we're operating is the epicentre of rhino poaching because 80 per cent of poachers come from Mozambique. With rhino horn meeting a seemingly insatiable demand from Asia - where it sells for US$75,000 ($100,000) a kilo - it's become a deadly battle.
"We're not the guys who sort out locals looking for bush meat because they're poor villagers, nor the people handling the educational aspects of the demand reduction campaign. 
"We're the boots on the ground dealing with situations in which animals are being targeted in a paramilitary fashion by poachers equipped with heavy-calibre rifles, while their protectors have AK47s.
"We train, equip, motivate them and fortunately the continent is full of young people who want to make sure these animals survive because they're part of Africa and because the world wants to see them and the tourism industry supports many," Mr Mander says.
"These young people - men and women - are conservation's special forces and my organisations provides them with the equipment to do the job. 
"Sure, we make use of drones and long-range thermal- imaging cameras but the silver bullet are our motivated rangers patrolling on foot.
"They can cover 30km in a day, they believe in what they do and they're out there accounting for 90 per cent of the results we get. 
"And it's the fact that we are seeing results that generates the foundation's funding.
"An example of the extent of public support was the Perth Zoo event organised by the SAVE. To raise $40,000 in an hour from an audience of 100 people is very humbling.
"But it underscored the fact that the work being undertaken by both foundations is netting results. Our boots on the ground are a great return on their investment - we're stopping the haemorrhaging.
"The Greater Lebombo Conservancy in Mozambique, where we operate, is the most critical place on the planet for rhino conservation and our rangers are all that stand between poachers and accessing the world's highest concentration of rhino."
Mr Mander said his foundation was the only not-for-profit operating inside the Greater Lebombo Conservancy and IAPF was working with the Mozambique Government, with border police, national parks and environmental protection police. 
"We have their backing 100 per cent," he said. "They appreciate that three years ago there were no rhino left in Mozambique. Now we've established that safe haven and in the last nine months we've seen 29 arrests as part of collaborative operations.
"These are not just guys on the ground - they're people involved with buying, selling, international trafficking. So we are slowly moving up the chain.
"Success for us is extending that safe haven and stopping poachers accessing the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which incidentally is the size of the Netherlands. We are doing this with fixed-wing aircraft, a helicopter, rangers, canine units and data analysis. All the tools at our disposal." Some of the vital tools underwriting IAPF's success come from generous locals, from SAVE's annual fundraising dinner at the Hyatt Regency each   November (it raised $150,000 last year) and from small group tours involving the rhino rangers support program and safaris.
"SAVE was established in Perth 29 years ago and to date we've donated more than $7 million to rhino conservation projects, mainly in Zimbabwe," Mr Duncan, who is in Zimbabwe conducting a tour, said. "The Mozambique venture with IAPF is a new SAVE initiative and will probably become our second most important area of funding for rhino protection."
For more information about IAPF and SAVE, visit iapf.org and savefoundation.org.au 
We're stopping the haemorrhaging.
Campaigner Damien Mander