Lunch & Learn with Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

About the speaker:

Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka formed CTPH with the aim to bring public health and livelihood interventions to communities surrounding the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) in Uganda, improving human health and well-being and preventing wildlife poaching, deforestation, and transmission of disease to endangered mountain gorillas.

She launched Gorilla Conservation Coffee after she visited coffee farmers living adjacent to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Here she learned that the farmers were not being given a fair price for their coffee and were struggling hard to survive, forcing them to use the national park to meet their basic family needs for food and fuel wood. Today, Gorilla Conservation Coffee pays a premium of $0.50 per kilo above the market price to coffee farmers living next door to the gorillas around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Gorilla Conservation Coffee further supports the farmers through training in sustainable coffee farming and processing. This helps to improve the coffee quality and increase production yield. Supporting local farmers helps to protect the critically endangered gorillas and their fragile habitat a win-win solution for nature and people.

Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka is currently exploring how to scale up this venture. Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka’s work exemplifies how it is possible to deliver health care and other services to achieve linked health, sustainable development, small scale business economic growth, and conservation goals.

She was the first Wildlife Veterinary Officer of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, recipient of the 2009 Whitley Gold Award for conservation, and recently became a National Geographic Explorer and winner of the Sierra Club’s 2018 EarthCare Award, which honors an individual, organization or agency that has made a unique contribution to international environmental protection and conservation.