Lawrence Zikusoka: Saving Gorillas one sip at a time

Good morning, everyone. It’s an honor to be here with you all to share an idea about saving gorillas one step at a time. It all starts with a journey. Dr. Gladys Kalema Zikusoka, Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian, is an expert on mountain gorillas. She was concerned about disease transfer from people to animals, and animals to people. This even occurred with mountain gorillas in Windi that acquired scabies, which is a disease outbreak that had spread, and eventually resulted in the death of the endangered mountain gorilla. During that time, she realized also that people were poor and they were also not all benefitting from the tourism industry. This included farmers around Bwindi National Park. So she set out to create a global brand called Gorilla Conservation Coffee which is saving gorillas once at a time to address two problems. First, regarding traceable coffee that single origin. And secondly, to reduce the need for community members to go into the park to search for food and fuelwood. The solution is kind of threefold. One is saving gorillas. How do you do that? Well, you've got to improve people's livelihoods. You’ve got to improve the community. You’ve got to improve conservation attitudes. At the same time, you’re looking at traceability, sourcing coffee from farmers only around the gorilla habitat. And thirdly, superior quality. You put these three things together, you create this idea - gorilla conservation coffee that sources only the best coffee from farmers around the gorilla habitat, packages it, and sells it on brick and mortar across the world, including Australia, here in Uganda and Kenya. It’s a single origin medium roast product called Gorilla Conservation Coffee. The kind of people that are interested in this idea are people that want to support lifestyle and health and sustainability(LOHAS). Yes, there are many coffees around the world and there are many ways to conserve gorillas. But this is one way and this is the idea that we wish to share with you. In terms of the environment that people are operating in, regarding single origin coffee, there are many companies that have a gorilla on the package, but they do very little in two ways: on the social side and the environmental side. Her idea, Dr. Glottis was to be able to pay the farmers above the market price - in fact, the whole 50 cents a kilo above the market price. And in turn, some of the proceeds go back to running conservation through public health, which is an award winning Ugandan founded grassroots NGO that promotes biodiversity and conservation. And thank you very much for joining us today in Saving Gorillas One Step At A Time.