Champion of the Earth Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka: Saving Our Precious Gorilla-people, Part 2 of 2

The kind doctor is also the author of the book “Walking With Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.” While speaking with Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka, we became aware of the negative effects that human interaction can have on the beautiful mountain gorilla-person communities. “Once they get used to people, they get too friendly. In fact, now we found that they're getting closer than the recommended distance. It was seven meters before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was increased to 10 meters. Because the disease is so infectious, just as it affects us, it can affect them.”

Sadly, these precious beings are also vulnerable to being exposed to disease-causing mites that we can transmit to them through our clothes. “They start leaving the safety of their forest habitat and go to people's gardens because that's probably where they used to range before their habitat was cut down, by people cutting trees of their forest home.”

Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka now describes the multifaceted approach that CTPH takes in promoting health in villages surrounding the areas where the mountain gorilla-people live. “We have three integrated programs. One of them is wildlife conservation, with a focus on wildlife health and habitat conservation. And then, with the community health program, we're focusing on a One Health approach, which is looking at zoonotic diseases which can spread between people and animals. Then on the side of alternative livelihoods, which is our third program, that started later when we realized that many people are unhealthy because they're poor. And so we decided to start supporting coffee farmers bordering the park by building a global coffee brand to save gorillas through coffee.” “So we decided to set up a program where we can provide fast-growing seedlings for the local communities who are very hungry and are having to depend on the forest just to survive. And we call it ‘Ready to Grow.’ So, we distributed these seedlings to 1,000 homes in November 2020.” “If we destroy nature, we ultimately destroy ourselves. And I think that's the biggest advice I'd like to give.”