Interview/ Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, founder and CEO, Conservation Through Public Health
Loss can be a learning. Ask renowned conservationist Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka.
She grew up in Uganda, and during the violent years under Idi Amin, her father was abducted and killed. Yet, it was this same environment that fostered her determination to serve. She would go on to study veterinary medicine in the UK, before returning home to work at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest as Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian.
In the late 1990s, Bwindi was staring at a crisis. Mountain gorillas, already critically endangered, were falling ill from diseases transmitted by nearby communities living in extreme poverty. Conservation efforts then largely focused on protecting animals from humans. Kalema-Zikusoka saw the flaw in that logic—gorillas could not be saved without addressing human health and livelihood concerns.
This insight led her to start Conservation Through Public Health. CTPH began by providing health care, sanitation education and family planning to villages surrounding Bwindi. Over time, it expanded into a holistic model integrating human health and wildlife and environmental protection—long before ‘One Health’ became a global buzzword.
Kalema-Zikusoka’s work yielded tangible results. Gorilla health improved, and human-wildlife conflict reduced. Communities that once viewed conservation as an imposed burden began to see it as a shared responsibility and profited from tourism. Beyond conservation, she has advised governments, spoken at international forums and also authored a memoir—Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet—that blends personal loss with conservation efforts.
THE WEEK spoke to Kalema-Zikusoka, 56, on the sidelines of the T.N. Khoshoo Memorial Award and Lecture, organised by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, in Bengaluru last December. Excerpts:
Q/ You come from a prominent political family. What made you become a veterinarian?
My grandfather [Owekitibwa Martin Luther Nsibirwa] was the prime minister of the Buganda Kingdom twice and believed deeply in education. He even sold his land to help establish the University of East Africa—now Makerere University—before he was assassinated. My father [William Wilberforce Kalema] was prominent in Uganda’s first post-independence government and was later killed under Idi Amin.
Despite this political background, I grew up surrounded by pets—stray dogs, cats and a mischievous vervet monkey named Poncho belonging to the Cuban ambassador to Uganda. Caring for animals and seeing them suffer pushed me toward veterinary medicine very early in life.
Q/ Uganda’s upheavals, from the Idi Amin coup to the civil conflicts that followed, affected both people and wildlife. How did this shape your family’s experiences and conservation in the country?
Idi Amin targeted people he saw as a threat, and my father became one of his first victims. We never saw his body, and it took my mother [Rhoda Nsibirwa Kalema] years to accept his death. She went on to become one of Uganda’s first female politicians.
Amin’s regime was also disastrous for wildlife. He hunted inside national parks, and many species declined sharply. Later, when Tanzanian soldiers came to oust him, they, too, relied on wildlife for food. The country’s turmoil set back conservation for years.
Q/ Early in your career you worked closely with chimpanzees. What experiences led you to shift your long-term focus to mountain gorillas?
Chimpanzees coming across the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo were often victims of the bushmeat trade; infants ended up at the Entebbe Zoo, cared for by the Jane Goodall Institute. Working with them after vet school was my first hands-on experience with primates.
But I had always wanted to work with gorillas. When Uganda’s mountain gorillas were finally habituated for research and tourism, I shifted my focus on gorillas.
Q/ You have spent decades observing mountain gorillas. How do they differ from lowland gorillas?
Mountain gorillas have longer, thicker hair suited to high altitudes and eat mainly leaves, shoots and stems, unlike lowland gorillas that consume more fruit. Socially, mountain gorillas live in harem-like groups, led by one dominant silverback with several females.
Q/ How did Jane Goodall’s work with chimpanzees shape your own with gorillas?
I first heard Dr Jane Goodall speak while studying in London in 1993. My sister and I were the only Africans in the room, and she warmly invited us to Gombe National Park [in Tanzania]. Later, in Uganda, I worked with her team on chimpanzee rescues and was honoured when she wrote the foreword to my book. Her deep, personal engagement with primate families shaped my own approach to gorilla behaviour and conservation.
Q/ The One Health approach is central to your work with CTPH. When did you realise human, wildlife and environmental health had to be addressed together?
This became clear early in my career when a scabies outbreak hit one gorilla group at Bwindi. The gorillas had acquired the disease from contaminated clothing used on scarecrows outside the park. Habituated gorillas often range near farms, making disease transmission easy.
It was obvious we couldn’t protect gorillas without improving community health. That outbreak laid the foundation for CTPH and our One Health approach.
Q/ Gorilla Conservation Coffee is one of CTPH’s most recognised initiatives. How did the idea take shape? And, how does it strengthen local livelihoods and long-term conservation?
We realised many community health problems stemmed from poverty. While tourism uplifted some families, coffee farmers living along gorilla routes were still struggling and sometimes entered the forest to poach or collect firewood.
In 2015, we launched Gorilla Conservation Coffee to give farmers a fair, stable price for their high-altitude speciality beans. A donation from every bag supports our conservation and community health programmes. We have grown from 75 farmers to more than 600, many of them women. Although the business is not yet profitable because of its social and environmental commitments, it has significantly strengthened local livelihoods and reduced poaching pressures around the park.
Q/ Zoonotic diseases are often linked to human–wildlife interaction, and tourism is sometimes viewed with suspicion. How do you see this issue as a veterinarian?
Zoonotic disease risk rises when people and wildlife are forced into closer contact due to habitat loss. Because humans and great apes are genetically so similar, infections easily pass both ways. Tourism adds another layer—visitors can transmit flu-like illnesses to gorillas, which is why mask-wearing and strict distancing rules are vital.
We also discourage risky practices like eating bushmeat, which has led to outbreaks of TB, anthrax and Ebola. Covid-19 highlighted how quickly diseases move between animals and humans, reinforcing the need for strong One Health systems that protect people, livestock and wildlife together.
Q/ How vulnerable are the great apes to outbreaks such as Covid-19 and Ebola and what measures proved most effective in protecting them?
Great apes are highly vulnerable because they share over 98 per cent of our DNA. We protect them through continuous health monitoring [via] a field lab and strong community health programmes.
Our village health and conservation teams promote hygiene, proper sanitation, family planning, alternative livelihoods and reduced forest dependence. This model—supported by data-based household assessments—has significantly changed behaviour, reduced disease risk and strengthened coexistence.
During Covid-19, strict mask-wearing, distancing and community task forces prevented transmission to gorillas and reduced severe illness among people.
Q/ Many countries, including India, struggle with human–wildlife conflict, sometimes leading to relocation of communities or attacks on animals. Based on your work in Bwindi, what practical steps can help people and wildlife coexist more peacefully?
Human–wildlife conflict undermines conservation, especially when crop loss or livestock predation goes uncompensated. We found that addressing people’s health and livelihood reduced resentment and pressure on forests. Projects like Gorilla Conservation Coffee, fast-growing food gardens and community health support help families earn and eat without turning to poaching. Tourism revenue can also incentivise coexistence.
Q/ Women like Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and you have transformed global understanding of great apes. How do you see your role in encouraging more women, especially in Africa and Asia, to enter wildlife science and conservation?
Women have played a major role in primate conservation, and their patience and persistence make them well-suited for fieldwork. When I began, there were no female rangers in the field; over time, my presence helped shift mindsets about what women can do.
Today about 20 per cent of rangers are women, and more young girls are inspired to join conservation—some even starting their own environmental initiatives. I hope my work shows that women can lead, conduct rigorous fieldwork and shape national wildlife policy.
Q/ Which is your favourite mountain gorilla in Bwindi since you started working? Why?
My favourite was Kanyonyi, born in 1996—the year I became Uganda’s first wildlife vet. We named our first coffee brand after him. Sadly, he died from complications after an injury and a fight with another silverback, but his legacy lives on through the coffee and the many people who share memories of him.