Join us for a fun and stimulating "THINK & Drink" session presented by the Stanford Program for Disease Ecology, Health and the Environment. Enjoy a happy hour of free beverages and hors d'oeurves followed by directed brainstorm under the banner of this THINK & Drink series topic: Conservation through public health: safeguarding human health and saving mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda.
At each event in this series, our distinguished guests will talk candidly about their work, with beverage in hand, and then we'll open up a brainstorm with everyone on the topic.
This brainstorm will be led by Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, CEO of the non-profit organizations based in Uganda Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) and Gorilla Conservation Coffee, on the topic: "Conservation through public health: safeguarding human health and saving mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda."
Gladys 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 then 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. Now, Gladys’ 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. Gladys is currently exploring how to scale up this venture.
In short Gladys’ work is one of the few outstanding examples of 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 – in the full spirit of Planetary Health. 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.
Be our guest and join in the conversation...Please RSVP (even if you are a maybe) so we don't run out of beverages!!