Conserving Ugandan Mountain Gorillas

A WWA Appeal for US$5000 to support the work of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) in protecting the Mountain Gorilla in Uganda with a comprehensive and pioneering approach that includes public health, community education and engagement

Photo credits: (L) WWA supporter Simon Wray, (R) CTPH

JUNE 2025 UPDATE: TARGET MORE THAN DOUBLED!!

Thanks to your astonishing generosity, WWA raised over $13,000 to fund the purchase in France and delivery to Uganda of CTPH's requested GeneXpert Machine. This is now up and running in the Impenetrable Rain Forests of Bwindi, Uganda.

The GeneXpert IV-2 System is equipped with advanced 10-color Technology, along with a compatible desktop computer. This machine enables CTPH to conduct important diagnostics for a range of pathogens, including tuberculosis (TB), human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV), human metapneumovirus (HMPV), and various other respiratory infections that affect both gorillas and people.

THANK YOU so much for your support again. This has been our largest and most successful appeal to date and a project we see as a wonderfully successful template for conservation projects across Africa. We are keeping the appeal open for the future and ongoing with the hope of further helping this amazing multi-faceted approach to gorilla conservation and animal and human health.

Here also is a link to a fabulous book written by CTPH's Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka. Dr Gladys did her veterinary training in London before founding and running the whole amazing CTPH operation. The book gives a full account and amazing insight into how she started out and what the organization has now become, and how your kind donations are employed in the overall project.

Handing over the Genexpert Machine

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Based in Uganda, the CTPH team works to protect the Mountain Gorillas of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park through a ground-breaking integrated human, animal and ecosystem health approach:

• Wildlife conservation with a focus on wildlife health

• Community health in the villages around protected areas

• Development of alternative livelihoods from eco-tourism for previously impoverished rural local people living around protected areas

Photo credit: CTPH. Photo taken before the COVID-19 pandemic; everyone is now required to wear masks near the gorillas

CTPH was founded in 2003 by London University Royal Veterinary College graduate, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, now an internationally recognised conservationist and veterinary scientist. She saw that in fragile areas where the lives of wildlife, people and livestock intersect, a decline in health in any of one of them affects the survival of the others.

CTPH works closely with the government (Uganda Wildlife Authority) and local partners to ensure that Mountain gorillas are protected and monitored. In the integrated process, entire villages have been transformed into flourishing trading centres with local people employed in hotels and wildlife lodges as professional guides and anti-poaching officers. Local people now also produce a range of eco-friendly products such 'Gorilla Conservation Coffee' for cafes, hotels and retail sales, and offer a range of activities for tourists.

Many previously highly vulnerable people - including women with children, abandoned by their husbands - now derive independent income by making souvenirs for eco-visitors.

CTPH’s Village Health and Conservation teams run broad-ranging educational workshops with local communities. Their strategic service delivery approach also addresses crucial issues such as family planning and basic hygiene, and educates about the risks and prevention of human and gorilla zoonotic infectious disease transmission.

Photo credit: CTPH.

WWA’S GOAL TO SUPPORT CTPH IN UGANDA

CTPH has requested funding for the purchase of equipment, including a field oven to dry gorilla faecal samples, and laboratory materials to facilitate studies at their Gorilla Health and Community Conservation Centre field laboratory into largely zoonotic diseases such as tuberculosis, and respiratory viruses including HPMV, HRSV and COVID-19. Such studies are of vital importance for both the conservation of the Mountain gorillas and the health of local communities.

Photo credit: CTPH.

Our aim is to raise $5,000 to buy equipment to help CTPH with this work now (and hopefully lots more in future for other vital projects).

Photo credit: CTPH.

Thanks to wonderfully generous ‘launch donation’ of US$2500 from the Dr Jane Frederick Family Foundation in the USA we are already half way there with this appeal!

Will you help us double this to $5000?

DONATE IN THE USA Please donate directly to WWAUSA as a regsistered NFP with IRS 501c3 status: EIN 93-4432792, with reference ‘Gorillas’ Donations can be itemised on your annual income tax return.

DONATE IN THE UK Donate directly to WWAUK as a UK Registered Charity: Number 1206285, with reference "Gorillas". Donations can be itemised on your annual income tax return.

DONATE IN THE EU and elsewhere in the world Please donate directly to WWAUSA as a registered NFP with IRS 501c3 status: EIN 93-4432792

Thank you for your generosity, it is hugely appreciated.

Click here to donate now

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For more information about this vital work, please visit https://ctph.org