Healthy Parks Healthy People

Read our Q&A with Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka.

Dr. Kalema-Zikusoka is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Conservation Through Public Health, an international grassroots NGO, to promote conservation with public health by improving primary health services for people and animals around protected areas throughout Uganda.

Why did you transition from veterinary work to an NGO?

While working as the first veterinary officer for Uganda Wildlife Authority, I led a team that investigated the first scabies skin disease outbreak in mountain gorillas that was eventually traced to people living around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, who have very little health care and information on diseases that can spread between people and animals, and more importantly who have inadequate hygiene and health seeking behaviour. When we held health education workshops with local communities on the risks of human and gorilla disease transmission, people who had benefitted from tourism were very willing to listen to what we had to say, and wanted to improve their health and hygiene to protect a sustainable source of income from mountain gorilla ecotourism. Mountain Gorilla ecotourism has created jobs, provided revenue for community development projects, enabled people to sell crafts, accommodation and food, and transformed local mud huts selling brew to flourishing trading centres.

 Later on as part of my Masters in Specialized Veterinary Medicine and Zoological Medicine Residency from North Carolina State University and North Carolina Zoological Park, we conducted tuberculosis (TB) surveys at the human/wildlife/livestock interface, where we found that 25% of people with chronic coughs had TB, and 50% of them did not boil their milk putting them at risk from TB in cattle that graze with buffalo. This made me realise that you cannot conserve the wildlife without taking into consideration the health of the people who they share a habitat and whose livelihoods is dependent on healthy gorillas. This led us to start Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), a grassroots Uganda based NGO, registered in Uganda and USA, that achieves wildlife conservation by enabling wildlife, people and livestock to co-exist through improving health care in and around protected areas in Africa. I started CTPH with my husband, Lawrence Zikusoka, who is a telecommunications specialist with international relations degree and Steven Rubanga, who is a livestock veterinary technician.

Have you been able to bring skills across that provide any unique insight?

Someone once told me that the veterinary medicine degree prepares you for many careers, because you get basic training in clinical medicine, public health, diseases, epidemiology, population medicine, and depending on your focus, you also get a solid background in conservation medicine, animal behaviour, and other related disciplines. I feel that this degree has enabled us to effectively link wildlife conservation and human public health to create common resources for both people and animals.

How important is a concept like "healthy parks healthy people" in developing nations?

The “Healthy parks, healthy people” concept is very important in developing nations because the poorest people tend to live next to protected areas, where government services are least available. This leads to people having preventable infectious diseases that could spread at the human/wildlife/livestock interface. Furthermore the high fertility rate, population densities and population growth rates experienced in developing nations, puts greater pressure on the natural resources because people go into the parks to poach, get firewood and other forest products to meet their basic needs. We have had people say that they have 10 children, half of whom are for going to school, while the other half are to chase wildlife back from their gardens. When a couple has too many children they are less likely to feed them, give them adequate modern health care or send them to school, so that the children end up having teenage pregnancies, getting married very young, and not gaining meaningful employment, perpetuating the poverty cycle, which could be broken with fewer children that they can afford.

Of your many awards, what has been your proudest achievement?

It is hard for me to say what has been my proudest achievement because each award has been very special and with a slightly different focus. For example the Ashoka Fellowship was for leading social entrepreneurs, the San Diego Zoo was for Conservation-in-Action, the Whitley Gold Award was for outstanding leadership in grassroots nature conservation, the Revolutionary Minds in Science recognition by Seed Magazine had a focus on interdisciplinary approaches used in science to effect global change. The Uganda Ministry of Tourism also recognized me for outstanding contribution to promotion of tourism and empowerment of women in Uganda; and I was chosen among nine environmental  leaders to write a letter to the next US President published in the Sierra Club Magazine November 2008 issue, where on top of climate change, I emphasised the importance of considering poverty, disease and population growth in environmental programs. Most recently CTPH was featured on a PBS Frontline World documentary, talking about the risks of zoonotic diseases to public health with a focus on the gorilla conservation story.  Overall I feel very honoured to have been recognized for our innovative approach and efforts to save Africa’s wildlife by improving the health of people. 

What is your favourite outdoor place, and why?

My favourite outdoor place is the forest, because it makes me feel most in tune with nature and our creator. The forest is also the natural habitat for my favourite species, the gorillas.