[00:00:00] Speaker A: In the misty mountains of Uganda, where endangered gorillas roam, a revolutionary approach to conservation is taking root. This groundbreaking vision isn't just changing the fate of mountain gorillas, it's transforming entire communities and reshaping our approach to safeguarding Earth's most vulnerable species.
Welcome back to Rewildology, the nature podcast that explores the human side of conservation, travel and rewilding the planet. I am your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation bye, archaeologist and adventure traveler.
Today we're celebrating World Gorilla Day with a legend in the field, Doctor Gladys Kalema Zikasoka. I had the opportunity to sit down with Gladys after reading her memoir, walking with Gorillaz, the journey of an african wildlife vet, complete with a forward from none other than Jane Goodall herself. Doctor Gladys has been a trailblazer in guerrilla conservation for years and is the founder of conservation through Public Health, an organization revolutionizing conservation through the combination of human and wildlife well being.
In this conversation, Gladys and I explore her journey from becoming Uganda's first wildlife veterinarian to the guerrilla troop that inspired her groundbreaking one health approach to conservation. We also chat about mountain gorilla conservation, the top threats the species faces, and how CTBH is both conserving gorillas and supporting local communities through alternative livelihoods, access to medical care, family planning, and so much more. You'll come away from this conversation with a deeper understanding of the link between conservation and human health and how you can help conserve gorillas.
Before we dive in, if you're loving what you're hearing, don't be shy. Hit that subscribe button, leave a rating and review and share this episode with your wildlife obsessed friends. Every listen helps spread the good conservation word. Also, fun fact, Uganda is the 40th country represented on the show, so thank you, Gladys, for adding a new region to rewadology.
All right, that is enough from me. Let's swing into the fascinating world of guerrilla conservation with the one and only Doctor Gladys Kalima Sekasoka.
Well, hi Gladys.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: I am so happy and so excited to be sitting down with you and exploring your incredible journey and the conservation work that you do. And also this wonderful book that you wrote that I highly enjoyed called walking with gorillas. But first, I think to set the scene for just your work and those of us that have not had this experience before. Do you remember your first time seeing a wild mountain gorilla and what was that like?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for inviting me on the show, Brooke. I'm very excited to be here and I'm glad that you enjoyed reading working with gorillas.
The first time I saw a mountain gorilla was actually 30 years, almost 30 years ago, September 1994, to be precise.
I was doing as a vet student, and I was studying parasites and bacteria in the fecal samples of gorillas, by analyzing the fecal samples of the gorillas. And it was just amazing because when I got to windy forest, unfortunately, having wanted to study the gorillas for so many years, I got a nasty cold, so I couldn't go into the forest. And I only had four weeks to do my research. So I had to spend a whole week trying to get better naturally. And I was in a place where there were no drugstores or clinics. And so I had to just get better naturally because I could not afford to make the gorillas sick. I couldn't afford to give them a flu or anything like that. So finally, when I finally got to see them, it was pretty incredible. Normally, gorillas are in a family, but the time that we got to see them, it was one silver buck gorilla on his own. And the rangers kind of tried to look for the rest of the gorillas, and we were moving with tourists. But what is even more exciting is I first collected samples from the gorilla night nest before I actually met them, which is also very exciting. I think a lot of people miss out on that now. But because we were checking them, we went to where they spent the night before.
We collected samples from their nests, because that was what my research was about. And then we got closer and closer, and I finally saw them. But although with the nests, I saw about, you know, six or seven nests, when we got to the gorillas, I only saw one gorilla because they couldn't find the rest. But it was really amazing because Kachapira just, he was so calm and accommodating, and he just stared at us. And I looked at him and I felt a really deep connection when I said into his intelligent brown eyes. And I just felt they're so vulnerable and yet so majestic, and yet they're so accommodating.
He was called kachapura because he has a broken hand. When they were habituating the gorillas, he had a broken hand means broken hand in Richiga. And he was just chewing on a piece of bark. So it was really, really a calming effect, I have to say.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Wow, that's incredible. Yeah. I have not, with all of my international travels, I have not had that one yet. And everyone has told me that you never forget the time that you see a gorilla. And so I'm sure, and I know after reading your book, that memory was etched into your mind. And so if we could explore why, of all of the species that you could have protected, that you could have been a voice for, you know, and a symbol of conservation and everything that you've done so far in Uganda, why did you decide to work with this species?
[00:06:19] Speaker C: I would say that that first time when I went to visit the mountain gorillas, I'd actually studied the chimpanzees before I'd studied chimpanzees two years earlier during vet school because the gorillas were not yet habituated for tourism. And Professor Vanon Reynolds, who was heading the Budongo forest project in northwestern Uganda, gave me an opportunity to study wild chimpanzees. So it wasn't the first world grade ape I studied, but anyways. But it was a very good preparation for me.
When I got to windy, I just saw how gorillas, how so much threatened they were, because as we got to the park, there was a very hard edge between the community and the park.
And so suddenly, first of all, we drove for almost 10 hours, you know, cutting the journey where we spent two nights somewhere else in Kabale. So then we finally get there in the evening when the mist is rising and it's a very hard edge between the community and the park. That's what shocked me. I'm like, oh, now we're in Bwindi and the gorillas are inside there. And then when I went to see the gorillas, I just saw how there was so much human interaction. You know, habitat loss is a big issue. You know, it wasn't.
The gorillas often come out of the park to eat people's banana plants. And so I saw that their habitat was quite small. And then at the same time, I saw how we could very easily make them sick. Of course, tourism was a real opportunity because when tourists come, they pay money. And then people, those money, that money pays salaries for the people who look after the gorillas. And some of it goes to the local communities so that they can coexist with the gorillas. So tourism is important. But also I saw that was a major threat. Just like I had a flu when I just got to Bwindi, I thought to myself, a tourist can have flu and pass it onto the gorillas. And in that time, there were only about 650 mountain gorillas left. In the whole world around in Bwinde, there were only about 300. So I was very concerned that the numbers were so small and they had so many threats. You know, they had a very small habitat, human, a lot of human interaction.
And I needed to do something to help to get the numbers up again.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
And that makes total sense. You see a need, you're like, oh my gosh, this species that I love so much. And I think maybe to give everybody some more context as well of your backstory that you share so beautifully in your book is you became Uganda's 1st. 1st female wildlife veterinarian, which like, incredible. So could you tell me a little bit more about that story? Because I feel like that also set the foundation for the work that you've been able to implement in the one health model. Yeah. So just talk a little bit more about that. Like, why did you decide to become a wildlife veterinarian and then get this really prestigious role? And then how do you feel like that helped you be in a place to then conserve mountain gorillas?
[00:09:30] Speaker C: Yeah. When I got to windy in penetrable National park and I saw how vulnerable the mountain gorillas were, I'd always wanted to be a veterinarian because I grew up with lots of pets at home and I felt I didn't want to see animals suffering. But then I thought to myself, having set up a wildlife club in high school in Uganda, Chibuli secondary school, I felt like I wanted to be a vet who also works with wildlife. Because again, in Queen Elizabeth National park, the time that we went, there were no predators. They had all been poisoned or, you know, there was hardly any prey.
People sometimes can attack them when they eat their cows or goats. And I just saw that there was very little wildlife. The elephants had gone to DRC and I thought, why don't I become a veto can bring back the wildlife. And then later on, when I went to Bwindi Penelopo National park and I spent a month with the mountain gorillas, I felt I need to become a full time wildlife vet and make sure that these gorillas don't go, you know, that we can bring back the numbers of the gorillas, make sure they don't go extinct. So I wrote to the executive director of the Uganda National Parks, which manages the wildlife in Uganda, and I sent him a copy of my reports and I said to him, thank you for giving me permission to come and study the gorillas. I would like to be your first veterinarian. And this is what a vet does. And I listed the types of things that a wildlife vet does because there had never been any wildlife vet in Uganda. Amazing. And it was snail mail in those days. There was an email.
A couple of months later I got a message back from him because where I was doing my vet school in London, Royal Vet College, University of London. I got a letter back from him saying, your job is waiting for you. I was like, whoa.
And I kind of told my friends, and then I suddenly got cold feet. I'm like, I don't know enough about wildlife.
So I started freaking out a bit.
And then I thought, maybe I should do a masters in wild animal health. It just began at London Zoo and the vet college. But the people who sponsored my studies, Kulika Charitable trust, felt like they wanted me to come back first to work, because they said, we don't sponsor students internally. They sponsored lots of Ugandans study in the service profession on condition that they can come back home and continue working and help to develop the country. It was started by a group of british trustees who lived in Uganda in the sixties. And so I told them, and they said, no, you need to work first. So I thought, okay. So I wrote back to Doctor Hydroma and I said, I'm ready to start. And so when I came out there, like, no one knew what abet does in wildlife, a lot of people felt that I shouldn't touch any animals because they had never heard of it.
They felt it's all about natural selection. The conservationists were the main people working in the wildlife agency. As you can imagine, in those days, it was about natural selection. The limping water is the next meal for the lion, which is fine. I understand that the lion will starve, but, you know, it was a very good lesson in conservation biology as well, for me. But then also. But if two gorillas fight, maybe it's time for the stronger one to take over the group, because the dominant silverback is the main one that is the father of most of the babies. And so there was all these arguments, which I understood, and then we came up with something that, you know, if it's human related or life threatening, I should intervene. And we developed all of these guidelines with the conservation biologists, the wildlife managers, and it was a very exciting time. And so. But nine months within my employment, the gorillas in Bwindi, they told me that they're losing hair and developing white, scaly skin.
So I went over there, and before I even went, I asked a human doctor friend of mine, what is the most common skin disease in people? And she said to me, it's scabies. And this human doctor friend of mine had, Doctor Katherine Sozi had spent time in the UK, she had studied in the UK just like me. She was a few years older than me, and she said to me, it's common because people in Uganda have, you know, especially in rural areas, have less than adequate hygiene, and they can pick up diseases like scabies, which was a surprise for me because in London, you know, being a developed country, England, people never had scabies. Occasionally they'll pick it up from their pets as a temporary infection from their cat or dogs, a coptic mange. But it wasn't a common disease at all. But anyway, I went with ivermectin, which is the wonder drug for scabies, not for Covid, but for scabies.
So it's a very good antiparasitic. So I picked it up with me because it's a very long journey. And then, you know, everything else which I thought could potentially be a problem, like antibiotics, the normal stuff that vets carry, make it. And I went to the veterinarian from Kenya, who had come to see how he can support the vet unit in Uganda, you know, helping us to develop a project about, you know, to develop the wildlife vet needs for Uganda. So Doctor Richard Koch came over. He got support from Wild bank to come over and help to develop the vet needs for wildlife in Uganda and was supposed to be moving around all the national parks. And I said to him, Richard, we have a problem. We have a sick gorilla. A whole group seems to be sick. Let's first handle this before we go around the country. Of course. He said yes. So we got into the car, and he had seen scabies in cheetahs in Masai Mara. Oh, and cheetahs, yeah. And it was the cheetahs that were visited by many tour vehicles that had scabies, which is interesting, not the ones that were not, because Kenya has mass tourism, and sometimes it gets too much like so many vehicles crowd around some, a few cheetahs and or lions, you know, the charismatic species. And so I thought to myself, okay, if it's kabies, this particular guerrilla group had shrunk to four because some of them had gone to the Democratic Republic of Congo. You know, they just crossed the border because wind is right next to it's bordering DRC. And we thought, well, maybe because there are four gorillas and six tourists are visiting four gorillas. But anyway, we got there, and yes, it happened to be scabies. And there were two vets we went with who happened to be tourists, who Richard Cockney, senior vets. And one of them was the head vet of St. Louis, zoo doctor Eric Miller. And his partner was a small animal veterinarian who sees lots of scabies cases in St. Louis. So that was pretty good. I had like three senior vets to help me on my very first intervention. And so we invited them back after the tourist visit ended. And they also gave their expertise and, you know, collected samples. Silk juvenile gorilla that we darted was still scratching, even under the effects of the anesthetic, because he was so itchy. The mother with the baby that had almost lost its hair, she wouldn't allow us near her, she was so shy. So we thought, let's go with the juvenile, find out what it is, and then treat the rest. So we. When during that anaesthetic, during that procedure, he was even scratching. And it was so obvious it was scabies. But we took samples and gave him ivermectin. And then the next day we came back to treat the rest. It was not very easy treating the rest because they now knew what had happened and they were, like, avoiding us. But we were able to treat the mom and the dad, Kachu pira, and then the first gorilla he ever saw, Kachapira, we treated him. It was his group that had scabies. And then the next day we came to try and immobilize the mom to get the baby, and she dropped the baby on the trail, which is very unusual for gorillas because it can hold onto a baby for a week till it starts rotting. And I had read about that in late, Doctor Diane Fosse's book, Gorillas in the Mist. And I thought it's because this baby had really lost so much hair. She had kind of given up on the baby by the time that we did the intervention. So she had kind of given up on the baby. So she dropped it and were able to do a very fresh post mortem, which is very rare in wildlife. And even after collecting samples from the baby, the mites were still alive after the baby had died. That's how bad the infection was. Baby also had pneumonia. And so later on, we started to ask ourselves, where could this have come from? And, you know, it's good to treat this symptoms, you know, obviously, they all recovered, thankfully, and they didn't spread it to other gorillas in the forest. The other gorilla group that was habituated, Mumbari group, didn't get the scabies because sometimes their group's ranges overlap.
But later on, everyone kind of turned to me a few years later and said, actually, it's not only that the gorillas likely got scabies because people put out dirty clothing and scarecrows to chase away gorillas and other wildlife, because generally people are not that hygienic and if they need water, they have to go down a very steep hill to get water, to climb up the hill, to wash and bathe and wash their clothes. So very often people are not cleaning themselves enough.
And then of course, when they put out scarecrows to chase away baboons, which actually cause more crop damage than gorillas, baboons, gorillas, other species. And we think that that's how they got it, because gorillas are curious, like us. They probably saw the clothing, they touched it and it spread through the group.
And the reason why they were going out to eat people's banana plants is because their habitat had been cut. And before the habitat was cut, this was part of their home range. And now that they had lost their fear of people, they went back to places that they used to range before their habitat was cut. But they found that these places were. Now people are living there and they're planting crops to eat, you know, like bananas, the bulk of eucalyptus trees for firewood. They would also like eating the bark of eucalyptus trees. So it was a whole process where habitat loss, disease, everything was affecting the gorillas. And so when we held a health education workshop in the local communities on the risks of human and gorilla disease transmission, because they thought I should lead that effort, being the only vet in the organization.
And I, I kind of told them what the problem was, how the gorillas got scabies. And I was about to tell them what the solution is. And I was together with the rangers, committee, conservation warden and ranger who talked to the community about the benefits of the park and why should we should protect wildlife. And then I was also with the district health sub county health assistant who talks to them about the importance of being healthy and hygienic public health. So actually it was a one health team at the time. It wasn't called one health yet, but it was a one health team. But I was leading it.
And so I was about to give them the solution.
And the ranger touched my arm and said, whispered and said, let's hear what they have to say about what you've just told them. And they came up. So he asked them, what do you think we should do about this problem?
And they came up with really good suggestions, much better than ours going to propose for them. They're much more practical, much more feasible, much more varied. And that was a huge eye opener for me as a veterinarian who's used to solving people's problems. And I found that they may be poor and not as well educated as me, but they know what is best for them and they know what works best in the situation. And so later on, I felt, why don't I start a non profit that can address these issues? They've already given us ideas of how we can prevent disease transmission between people and gorillas, and this nonprofit can focus on these issues. And so a few years later, conservation through public health was founded. Actually, when I was here in America, and my husband was one of the first founder members, I met him again here and we eventually got married. So he was the first donor.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Amazing.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: I know, I know. We both put in a open, a bank account in Wakovia. It's now called Rosfago. And that's how conservation through public health began.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: That's an incredible story.
And before we get back to the solutions, I think for those of us that, you know, aren't as involved with mountain gorilla conservation as obviously you are, could you. And also this subject, this subject is put online in so many different ways, but I would love if you could maybe clear up some misconceptions or put, paint the actual picture, what is going on with mountain gorillas? You mentioned habitat loss and conflict with people, but could you maybe explain the full picture? What, what is the history of mountain gorilla conservation and what are the top threats that maybe they are facing historically in the past 30 years, or even if they're still experiencing, just so that we can have a better idea of the solutions that you're working on? That would be fantastic if you could explain that.
[00:22:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Mountain gorilla conservation. Mountain gorillas were first discovered, I guess, at the beginning of the 20th century, in 19, you know, 19. Oh, in the 19 hundreds, the early 19 hundreds.
And in Rwanda or DRC, like in the virungas, anyway, because the mountain gorillas are found in two populations. The first discovered population was discovered in the 19 hundreds very early the beginning of the century. And then in 1980s, when people were going through the forest, they came across gorilla night nests with fecal samples, and they sent those samples to California doctor Oliva rider in California, and they found out that they were actually exactly the same as the mountain gorillas in the virungas that had been discovered eight years earlier, you know, almost 90 years earlier. And so suddenly the mountain, it was like, now there's two populations of mountain gorillas. And that's when I got to discover the mountain gorillas. When I was setting up the wildlife club and award and said, we have mountain gorillas in Uganda and I wanted to visit them. And he said, but they're not yet habituated. And so the mountain gorillas used to be many more. At one point, obviously these two forests were connected, you know, over maybe 200, 300 years ago they were connected. But because of human habitation in the area, road networks, development, the two populations got separated.
And that's why they're exactly the same. The DNA was exactly the same. But they no longer connect, sadly. And so the biggest threat then to them has been development, infrastructure, habitat loss.
Then later on, because doctor Diane Fosse habituated the gorillas in virungas, she got really close to them to protect them and they saw an opportunity for tourism after, sadly, she died. And so tourism began. And I could say that tourism helped save the mountain. Great, because it enabled people to coexist with them. And people saw that as long as the gorillas are alive and doing well, tourists can come and pay money. And this money can go to support community development, take people out of poverty and let them coexist with the mountain gorillas. And so guerrilla tourism began in Rwanda first, and then later on it came to Uganda when the windy gorillas had been habituated. But the biggest problem with tourism is that when the gorillas are habituated for tourism, they can easily spread diseases to people. I mean, when they habituated for tourism, people can easily spread diseases to the gorillas because we're so closely related. I mean, disease can go both directions. But of course it's much easier for us to go to the doctor and it is for the gorillas to go to the doctor. And so as much as tourism was an opportunity to save the gorillas, it was also bringing the greatest threat, which is human disease. We share over 98% genetic material, 98.4, and can make each other sick. And so that then became the next biggest threat. So the biggest threat to gorillas all over the world, there's four subspecies of gorillas, the mountain gorillas, the eastern lowland, western lowland and cross river. The biggest threat to all four of them is habitat loss and human wildlife conflict. If they happen to go outside the park, people may want to kill them because they're not benefiting from them. Maybe they're destroying their crops and they're upset. In those other countries, people also poach them to eat.
And when they poach the gorillas to eat them, because some of them feel that it's a delicacy, so they poach the gorillas to eat them in the other countries.
But in Uganda and Rwanda, it's the people who lived in the forest. It was bad luck for them to look in the eyes of a gorilla and culturally, people did not eat primates, especially gorillas. And so the biggest threat to them there is people putting out snares for other animals in the forest that they eat, like the duiker, the small antelope, the bush pig. And gorillas getting caught in these snares and, you know, losing a limb or sometimes dying, sometimes they spearhead because they come into confrontation with the poacher, which has happened at windy as well, on top of the snares. And so those are all the threats that face the gorillas. But when they become habituated for either research or tourism, then the next biggest threat is disease and actually becomes more of a threat, a bigger threat to the gorillas. Right now, I believe the biggest threat to the mountain gorillas is human disease. You know, disease from closely related humans followed by habitat loss. But they both are connected to each other because people come into contact with gorillas either inside the park as tourists or researchers or, you know, people who are using the forest, like, legally, maybe to collect honey, basket weaving material or medicinal plants, which is allowed if they do it in a controlled way.
Also, poachers can come in and cause a problem.
But also another big problem is people going outside the park. I mean, gorillas going outside the park and getting sick when they come into conflict with people. And so that's where habitat loss is always going to be a big issue because as long as gorillas are going outside their protected area into people's gardens, it's always going to become an issue. And so, yeah, so those are all the threats to the gorillas, but the ones that are habituated, like the mountain gorillas, which are the most habituated for tourism, they have an additional threat of human disease.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And from what I read in your book and what you were just explaining, it seems like this scabies infection that you happen to find and treat and luckily save most of, other than that baby, you were able to save the rest of the troop, right? Everyone's able to come through all the. Yeah. Amazing. So clearly this idea came to you that, like, okay, public health is just as important as conservation. Like, these things are linked. And I mean, in your book, it sounds like this was a revolutionary idea. No one had come up with this. So what was that like when you started proposing this idea? Like, how did that go, essentially, when you started talking to your colleagues of like, we need to address public health just as much as we need to do conservation if we want to save the gorillas?
[00:28:59] Speaker C: I would say that it went. People understood it, especially those people who lived locally in Uganda because they saw that, wow, the gorillas are getting sick because people are unhealthy and unhygienic. You know, you can't really keep the gorillas healthy without improving the health of their human neighbors.
So locally and nationally, I think it was much well accepted, much better accepted. But globally, the donors didn't understand it at all.
People are like, you know, conservation is addressed by itself, public health by itself. There's a whole set of donors who only support conservation activities and others who only support public health activities. And now you're trying to bring the two together. So it was very hard to do fundraising at the beginning when we started the non profit, because we thought, oh, yeah, let's go to public health donors, because as we're improving the health of the people, the gorillas will also be improved and get them to support the health of the people, the gorillas and other wildlife together. They were like, we don't support animals, okay? We help people, not animals, okay? Then you go to the animal donuts and they're like, you know, can we also help the people so that they don't make the animals sick as we're also helping the animals, we don't support people, we don't support public health, the conservation donors. So it was always very, and I'm going to myself, what should I do? And then in the end, I. We found those donors who got it, you know, like the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation were one of our first donors. They got it. They were like, okay, we're going to support you. They ended up supporting us for six years to set up a one health program. USAID also got it because they had started a program called Population Health Environment, looking at improving family planning, access to family planning products in areas where there is rich biodiversity. Because they realized that high human population growth and high human population densities as part of the reason that there was habitat loss. And that's also another threat at brindy, high human population densities. And so they liked the fact that we were improving the health of the people so that people and gorillas don't make each other sick. We started off with tuberculosis with support from the irish government in Uganda, Development Corporation, Ireland, and they liked that. So they said, why don't you add family planning onto that model? Which we did. So we set up a PHE population health environment program at Windy, which really, really helped to strengthen what we're doing.
And because I didn't actually realize that people had like ten children and only half they'll tell you, ten are for, half are for chasing wildlife from the garden and the other half go to school. And of course the boys are prioritized over the girls to go to school. And then the girls don't go to school. They end up having teenage pregnancies. And, you know, you just can't break the poverty cycle because they won't get jobs. Children won't get jobs because they haven't gone to school. They don't have a skill set.
And so it's hard for them to work anywhere else other than just digging in the garden all day long. And so it all made sense because also, if you have too many children, then you can't give them proper health care. And again, they can make the gorillas sick. So it was a whole, I got to see how a lot of things were affecting, were bringing about zoonotic disease transmission between people and animals, especially the critically endangered mountain gorillas at the time. So it was very much I found that I needed to convince people from other donors from other areas.
Of course, the donors who were easier to convince were those who understood the importance of doing things in a multidisciplinary fashion. You know, multiple people from different disciplines working together. But there were not many at the time. But I have to say that right now there's a lot more donors who know that it's important, I think because of, you know, the Covid-19 pandemic was one that really got people thinking, we can't just do address human health alone or animal health alone. You know, there's animal welfare, wildlife health. We need to address everything together, wildlife conservation.
But even before the pandemic, I think our work kind of, we tried our best to, you know, to raise awareness about what we're doing as we're implementing one, also to raise funds. And this helped to educate many donors. I know there's a particular donor who, the first time we sent them a proposal, they're like, this is absurd.
It's good. They give comments. This is like, weird. You can't combine. You know, it was a conservation donor. They said, you can't bring in public health. Then I felt really disappointed and somebody said to me, conservationist said, look, you're educating them. Apply again next year. So we did. And then they're like, okay, but you need to improve on the log frame. And I'm like, okay, this is making progress so that we're getting somewhere. We're getting somewhere. So at that time, we send it. You know, like, we rewrote the proposal. We focused in a different way, but it was still about one help and we got the money, I thought, and they actually put in the core of their proposals that health is, if you're looking at health in conservation, this is also something we consider. And I thought, okay, we educated that particular donor and I'm glad, you know, and so then we got the funding. So there's been a lot of. I realized that as much as I love being in the field with the animals and people, I have to also get involved in advocacy because people have to understand what they should support such work. And, yeah, so it's been like that. And I'm glad that more and more organizations have been, have picked up this approach to conservation. You could call it one health or phe or ecohealth, whatever you call. It's all the same, or planetary health. It depends on what resonates with which donor, but it's essentially the same thing. Just depends on which donor you're talking to and what resonates with them. But I'm so glad that more and more organizations are picking it up, both in the conservation NGO's, health NGO's, the governments, all of them are beginning to realize that you can't just address it separately because you won't have long term outcomes and impact.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Speaking of impact, and you just mentioned earlier a lot about the communities. I would love to go back to that.
You had this idea, you know, this incredible light bulb moment, that if I'm going to protect these mountain gorillas, especially that are exposed to tourism, we have to work with communities.
How did you approach the communities? How did, what was their reception to you? I'm assuming you were an outsider, like you're not from that community. So how did you essentially get them on board to this?
[00:35:42] Speaker C: I would say that in a way I was an outsider, but then also I think what probably also really helped is that they had been seeing me as a vet student. A lot of the park staff from Windy, 90% are from the local community. So they saw me as a vet student and they saw me as their veterinarian.
So they always knew I was the vet for their gorillas and I'm keeping them healthy and this is helping to keep them alive. And tourists are coming, so they love me for that.
So they already kind of trusted me because they knew about me. But also what helped is that the people who we worked with are from the community.
When we went for the first health education workshops, the rangers we worked with were from, one of them was from the local community. So that really helped. And then later on, when we started the nonprofit, we tried to work with people from the community who can already talk to their own communities, who they already trust. And I think that also really helped. But I had learned a lot from what you call participatory rural appraisal method, which is the method we used the first time around. And so when I went to the gorillas, I mean, when we went to visit the communities, we found that you have to let them buy and own the solution. And so when we said to them that we want to now get a group of people who can help people, you know, like, the tuberculosis is a bit different there. It was like someone got tb. We went and looked for people who have tuberculosis or suspected tb cases, and they show the person who watched them taking medicine every day for eight months. So that was a bit different. They were working with their neighbors.
But when the USAID approached us and said, we'd like you to add family planning, we met with the local leaders. Again, even with the tb, we met with the local leaders, told them, we're starting this program. Whoever is volunteering to support this patient to get better has to be a volunteer so that it's sustainable. Because when we reduce tb in your community, tuberculosis, everybody benefits because people share, go and drink in the same places. They drink from the same kind of. They use a straw and they drink from the same, you know, Calabash. Or if not, they share cups and everybody can get tuberculosis. So they understood that. So with family planning, we said to them, we're meeting with you again, but this time around, we're promoting access to family planning, contraceptive use for those who would like it, which we shared with them the benefits and the methods. And I said, how should we do it? Should we get the same people watching, people taking tuberculosis medication? They said, no, we should have one person per village who can read and write because they have to collect a lot of data and who someone trusts because they have to influence people to change their behavior. And so that's how it started. They came up with the idea of having one person per village, and later on, when it got, they had too much work because they had like a hundred homes to follow. Then we slowly reduced it to like four people per village. You know, when the government, the village health system, village health team had reached Bwindi, where we were working. And so we then got all village health teams to become village health and conservation teams. But a lot of it is through listening to the local partners, the local communities, the government, local government officers. They will tell you okay? You know, they're overworked, so you need to have more of them. And we want all our village health teams to be trained to do conservation work, not just some of them knowing conservation, conservation and others are knowing something else. We want them to all have the same training. And so that's how it's evolved, through listening to the local people in the area and owning this, you know, discussing the solutions together and owning them together. And I think that's so important. You can't just come in and say, I know what's best for you, because you actually don't know what's best for them. You actually don't.
And so it's really important to listen to them them and come up with something which works well in their situation.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: And extending on that even further, you talk about a couple examples in the book, and I would love to discuss them. You've mentioned a couple times that these communities are quite poor. The poverty is definitely an issue. That is the factor of a lot of the things that you've been explaining. So what are some alternative livelihoods that your ngo or that the communities came up with that is also sustainable? What are some of those things that's helped leave the poverty levels in these communities that live beside gorillas?
[00:40:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
One thing that we decided to begin is gorilla conservation coffee.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: I love coffee. I'm apparently drinking my cup right now.
[00:40:25] Speaker C: Oh, wow, that's so cool. Who I'd like to even hold it up here. So gorilla conservation coffee. And what we do is it was the gorilla on the package is one of my favorite gorillas, Kanye.
And we started gorilla conservation coffee because we realized that not everybody was benefiting from the tourism market, you know, the tourism industry. And not everybody could be a ranger taking tourists to the gorillas or carrying out law enforcement or community conservation, and not every. Or doing research. And not everybody could be a porter who carries your bag as you go up to the gorillas. And not everyone can sell crafts and accommodation. But there were coffee farmers. As you're visiting the gorillas, many times you cross coffee farms because, you know, you start out outside the park, then inside the park. And we found out that these people are not getting a fair market or steady price. And so my husband suggested to me that why don't we start a global coffee brand to save gorillas through coffee? And that's how we started gorilla conservation coffee. That was in 2015, we got support from Wild Wildlife Fund, Switzerland. They gave us a loan and training on how to set up a social enterprise. And then after that we got going and we found out that actually a lot of people, some of these farmers were poaching because they couldn't get a good price for the, their coffee, so they needed to eat meat. They're just going to the forest and hunt animals. And now that they have a good price for good coffee, they didn't have to poach. And so it was really making a big difference to conservation. And this has really helped. And we found that, you know, a lot, some of them were reformed poachers. So some of the reform poachers are now involved in gorilla conservation, coffee, social enterprise. And so it's been really a nice way to support the communities beyond tourism. A sustainable way of supporting the communities beyond tourism. We only buy good coffee from them because we have to sell it and people are paying higher price for it. And it's really delicious coffee. It won.
It was among the top 30 coffees reviewed in coffee review. Wow. In California. Yep. In the whole world.
I know, I know. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And anyway, the great thing about it is because it's a high altitude, gorillas live in the mountain.
So obviously when you grow coffee in higher altitudes, it tastes better because of the soils and the temperature. And so that really helped. And now we get, trying to get all the farmers to produce that coffee. They won 92 points, which is specialty coffee. And we're trying to get them all to continue to produce this premium and specialty coffee. So we only buy good coffee from them at a above market price and we sell it to coffee drinkers in Uganda, tourists who come, a lot of tourists meet these farmers and people cultivating the garden and they want to support them. They want to feel that I'm drinking coffee, which is supporting the local community who I've met, even as I'm going to the gorillas, they love that. So a lot of lodges buy the coffee, which is helping. And then also we have it at our gorilla conservation cafe. We set up a cafe in Entebbe, just near the airport, the first conservation cafe in Uganda.
And so people are able to come and learn about the conservation, buy coffee before they fly out, but also at the airport as they go out in the gift shops. And so it's really helping to spread awareness. Even if people don't all make it to the gorillas, they feel like they're supporting them in some way. And then it's also available in America. We're going to restart it soon.
And it started off with pangos, someone who's crazy about pangolins also started selling our coffee. John Probat. And then there's cradle, Valerie from cradle. And now we're going to work with a company in New Jersey to get the coffee here, fulfillment company. And we're also looking for distributors. It's available in the UK with mani raw beans and in New Zealand. And we're trying to get it in all these other countries again. The pandemic kind of stopped things a bit, but we're picking up again. But every time I gave a talk during the pandemic and said, even if you can't visit the mountain gorillas, you can support them by buying coffee, because then we're keeping more people out of the forest because poaching really went up during the pandemic because people had become so reliant on tourists to even use the money from tourism to buy food. And so then that the buyer in the UK got so many sales because she had the coffee there already. And so she actually started her coffee business with us. Gorilla conservation coffee during the pandemic.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:44:59] Speaker C: Late 2020 is when she ordered her first bags, and now she's ordered so many, and it's really doing well. And so, yeah, everybody like that is supporting the gorillas. And a donation from every bag sold goes to support the community health, guerrilla health and conservation education programs of conservation through public health.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Amazing. Okay. Yeah, definitely gonna put that in my back pocket because I definitely need to get some of this coffee.
[00:45:27] Speaker C: Like, I need some arabica coffee. Yeah, I know, it's. It's really nice coffee. It's delicious. It's. Everybody loves it. Single souls, traceable.
And now everybody's looking to know. More and more people want to know, where did this product come from? Can we trace the people who produced it? Were they treated well? Did they get a good price? Was it fair wages?
Was the environment destroyed or not destroyed? Or is a species being protected? I think there's more and more consumers growing in that way. And so we're glad that we're also contributing responsible consumption.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. Especially as I think it's like the most consumed drug in the world. Caffeine is.
[00:46:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: And through, like, coffee and everything like that. So, yes, incredibly, just smart. And I. I remember reading that section of your book and like, oh, my gosh, I need to get some. And then just also what it was like for you to figure out writing a for profit after being in the nonprofit world and like, all this growth you had to go through, even after everything you've already gone through. And so I think on that, I would, I would love to ask this question to you, what is success for you? What does that mean? Do you have like a bigger goal that you're reaching to, or is it constantly evolving? Have you already reached your big goals and now you're just growing from that? But yeah, in this, this world of guerrilla conservation and also helping communities, what is the, what's the end point if you have one?
[00:47:10] Speaker C: That's a great question. It's actually probably a combination of everything you've said.
But I would like, probably for me right now, I feel that I'd love all the gorillas in Africa to be protected and their numbers to be growing. I'm so glad that we've contributed to the positive growth trend of the mountain gorillas. The numbers have almost doubled since I first started working with them 28 years ago. And I'm really excited about that. The last census in 2018, we counted over 1000 gorillas, you know, with the 459 at windy. And we're hoping to have another census later this year because the census is carried out once every five years to fit in with the inter birth interval of the gorillas which have a baby once every four to five years. And so I'm glad that we have been able to do that, but want to keep that positive growth trend. And some of the things we want to do is to expand the habitat, protected habitat for mountain gorillas, because now the numbers are growing, but spaces and growing, and there's more and more human wildlife conflict because of that. You know, they're spending more and more time outside the park as they get habituated and the numbers increase. And so we're trying to work with the local communities to see if they're willing to sell their land to expand the park. And some of them are very willing to. And that's one of the big things we're working on. But then also we want to bring about similar gains to all the guerrilla populations in Africa. We want to implement our one health approach to the other gorilla subspecies and help to reverse the trend because all of them are going down. The mountain gorilla is the only one that's no longer critically endangered because although there are just over 1000 left in the world, they're showing a positive growth trend. So IUCN took them off the critically endangered list in 2018, whereas the other gorilla subspecies, some of them are even much more in number than the mountain gorillas like the west alone and gorillas suspected to be over 100,000. But they're in an area where every year they're being eaten. You know, so many gorillas are being killed through bushmeat. Ebola also really resulted in a death of over 5000 gorillas, you know, over ten years ago. So Ebola is still an issue and those kind of diseases, and so they're critically endangered because of the bushmeat trade. And Ebola and then the eastern lowland are only about 9000. There's a lot of retaliatory killings in that part. It's in the middle of DRC, and then there's also the Cross river, which are very few in number, only about 300. And so we'd like to implement our one health approach, maybe gorilla conservation coffee as well. You know, whatever we're doing, like our approach, that is combining health, conservation and development to help in these other areas, working with other partners on the ground. Because, for example, we've worked with the guerrilla organization, the Democratic Republic of Congo. I also sit on their board, which is wonderful.
We've also. There are different.
We may be working soon with Obudu conservation Center in Nigeria who want to help the Cross river gorillas. It's developed by local nigerian family and they want to support conserve gorillas in the, in that area and other wildlife. So those are the kind of things we want to do. But we also want to build, we want to see more people, more african leaders in conservation. So I'm the vice president of the African Primate Society and we're building african leadership in primate research and conservation.
We had the second conference in Uganda in 2019, and I was like the chairperson of the organizing committee.
And we got like over 300 people coming to the conference and 85% were native local Africans presenting papers and abstracts, which is normally the opposite. When you go to the international primate conferences, only 10% are local Africans. And yet a lot of people are presenting papers from their countries, but they're not presenting the papers. And so that's why we started AP's. We're trying to get more people involved in the conservation, more youth, more children.
We have a young CTPH has grown from three of us, me, my husband and Stephen Rubanga, the third founder member, who is a vet technician, minister of agriculture and Chi to our logistics assistant. Now we have over 40 staff and most of them are young, full of energy. And then also we work with so many volunteers. We have over 400 community volunteers we work with.
We want to continue to spread the model of our village health and conservation teams who go out and promote good health and hygiene and conservation education all over. In many places where we're working, we do have a group, a set of that kind of people in DRC. We have 76 there. And we feel that they're the ones who are more likely to come their communities to change, as you mentioned earlier. How do you convince them as an outsider? We believe that if somebody is from the village, the same village, they're more likely to change the behavior of those people than someone coming from another village or another district or another part of the country or another country. And so we always get role models within them and they're able to visit people in their homes and change their behavior. We're also working with school children. We started a steam program, science, technology, engineering, art and math, with support from National Geographic.
And we are able to go to the work with several schools and youth.
We are actually now engaging over 2000 kids or youth through these groups. And we're working also with global green STEM based out in Colorado. And we're trying to get them to come up with their own conservation program, which can, you know, like recycling or poetry projects so they don't have to enter the forest to poach. Some of them, their fathers are hunters or poachers. Their grandfathers were poachers or hunters. And so we find that the students are changing. My son actually is one of those youth of influence. He wrote this when he volunteered at the zoo when he was 13 and then wrote the book when he was 16. And so a lot of kids in Uganda love this book, a lot of young children and everywhere, and a lot of them want to also work at the zoo, volunteer at the zoo or protect the wildlife in the zoo. So we're trying to encourage students to come up, you know, with initiatives like this.
Yeah, so that's, those are all the kind of things we're trying to do, get more and more people engaged in conservation, that people from the local areas spread our approach either through us doing it or working with local partners on the ground, not actually only with gorillas, but any other species. We worked with the Jangudo Institute in Budongo forest to bring a one health approach to the chimpanzees. And I was very, very excited when Doctor Jangudo wrote the foreword for the book, you know, and because she really understands our work. I met her when I was a vet student and she's been following me as I developed over time.
[00:54:19] Speaker B: I mean, incredible. And that's why I was so excited to one read your book and then, and then talk to you about all of these things because you've, isn't it just so amazing? I've come to find as all the people I've talked to and the more I get in my career in this. This field, that we go into it for one reason, and then we realize there's like a gazillion ways to help. I mean, solve is a strong word, but, you know, help, whatever the issue is. Like, you went into this because you wanted to save gorillas. You were like, I want to save wildlife. I want to save this incredible species. And now look at everything you just told me that you're doing. Like, with this one, like, one bigger goal. It's all of these things. And, I mean, and now you're, you're, you could say you're an authorization on top of that. So why did you decide to write this book? What did this mean for you? Putting your story in words, I would.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Say that I felt that I had very many unique experiences, which I felt should be shared.
When I started out as the first wildlife vet in Uganda, it was quite a journey. Changing people's minds. Yes, we have to treat the wildlife. This is why we should treat the wildlife. And all the things they got me to do. When those who realize abet can do this, they can move animals. So I thought that was important. And actually, when I finished working at the wildlife authority, when I got an opportunity to do a zoo medicine residency in North Carolina State University and the zoo, I thought, I'm going to now write a book. I was also inspired by doctor Jane Goodo because even as a vet student, as reading her books, attending her talks in London, and she was one of the conservationists who, I would say early on in her career, started writing. And she got, she writes writing for the general public, you know, not only for people within her field. And it got many people to start to care about chimpanzees and wildlife. So she reached people, the general public, she reached people outside her field. And I wanted this book to reach people outside my field of conservation and veterinary to be able to influence people, because all these people influence conservation in one way or another. And so then when we. But of course, when I got to North Carolina, the zoo medicine residency program was very busy. I was working at the zoo and doing classes at the university. Then I met my husband. Then we got married, and then we started the nonprofit, which is a baby, a big baby, which is still growing.
And then we had children. And, yeah, so there was no time to write, you know, when we go back to Uganda. And then in 2019, I thought, maybe I should start writing again. Actually, in 2018, I was privileged and honored to win the Sierra Club Earth Care award. And when I was going walking in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
My host took me for a walk in the Rocky Mountains, and they said to me, actually, so you were the first wildlife bet in Uganda? No. Said, yes, I was. Yeah. I wasn't just the first female first world like bet. So Etna's like, let me talk to some people I know in Ireland press. And so she talked to them, and it's a publishing house, and they were excited about it. And they said, when she's ready, we can review her draft. And then later on, I met a book agent in the UK who said, let's get going. This is now December 2019.
I met her in November 2019. December 2019. I started writing an outline of the book together with Suzanne York, who went working with Transition Earth. I sit on advisory board, and we're walking up in the Rocky Mountains. And I thought, now I have to do it because I'm going to start forgetting what I've done. Because now we have the one health part, which is also another book that could be written. So let's just combine everything and write a book.
And so that's how it all got started. I started writing the outline, then the pandemic comes, and then that added another dimension to the book because I was so worried that the gorillas were going to pick up Covid from people, because already, you know, we were so concerned that the gorillas were getting close to people. They'd lost their fear of people. People are getting within 3 meters of them, and sometimes the gorillas would get even closer because they're curious and they've lost their fear of people. And people are looking for those experiences, which is even more scary. And so we were trying to advocate to people, educate them. Don't get too close. You can make the gorillas sick, stay at respectable distance so you can watch their behavior and not make them sick. And then Covid comes. So, of course, we were so busy making sure everyone puts on masks. You know, we advocated to the government, now everyone puts on masks. Even after the pandemic is coming to an end, everyone has to put on a mask because we can give them flu and other diseases. So that kept me really busy.
So as much as, like, pandemic would have given me time to write, so I didn't actually get that much time to write. And then we got a publisher, and then I had to just get going. And so, yeah, those are all the, the reasons why I ended up writing the book.
And, yeah, and the last part of the book talks about sustaining conservation. And so I was glad to be able to just talk about sustaining conservation through tourism, through social enterprises like guerrilla conservation, coffee one health, but also engaging women in conservation.
And that's something that I never really used to think about when I first started out as just a bethe working in conservation. I want to be taken seriously. I need to do as much as I can. But people used to keep asking me, what's it like being, do men take you seriously? And I'm like, of course they do. Because, you know, I didn't really notice it that much because I had a unique skill I was bringing to the table that no one else had. But later on, I realized that actually maybe they were having issues with a woman in that position, but no one showed it to me. I only found out later, 20 years later, later, by another dynamic woman who's studying chimpanzees and also a national geographic explorer. She said, I'm so glad you proved them wrong because they doubted your abilities being a woman.
So, yeah, so then, being a woman in conservation, that chapter, women in conservation, was one that both my book agent, who's a woman, and a publisher in Skyhorse Publishing, they both felt that I needed to.
To write this chapter, and they really helped me in editing it. So that was also a very important chapter for me.
Yeah. So those are all the reasons I wrote. But also I encourage my mom to write.
My mom wrote this book, my life is bad a weaving.
She was one of the first female politicians in Uganda, and she encouraged a lot of women to join politics and mentor people like the vice president and speak of parliament. She took 20 years to write her book.
I took two years, but, you know, and so she's been a great source of encouragement for me and allowed me to do what I want. I also took her to the gorillas. So, yes, the role of women in conservation is something that I think is really important. And I think unless you engage women, you won't really have holistic outcomes. And conservation won't be balanced because both women and men affect the wildlife equally. And I'm actually on the leadership Council for Women from Environment Africa, which was initiated by Doctor Lila Haza in Kenya. She's a co founder of Lion Guardians, she's egyptian. And she felt that a lot of women were discouraged to get into conservation and didn't get as much support. And she felt that we need to encourage them to get to their leadership potential.
Even if they're there, they don't want to make them the heads of institutions only because they're women.
And so she said, let's try and get men to women to realize their leadership potential. So it's been an exciting journey and I talk about all that in the book and I think it's also a way to just get people to sharing the lessons I've learned along the way and get people to understand the importance of protecting gorillas and protecting other wildlife conservation in general and seeing that they can all do something about it and the importance of using integrated approaches. You can't just protect wildlife by being a conservation biologist, only focusing on law enforcement. You have to look at so many other factors, engage communities, look at the health of communities and the health of wildlife. You know, look at other ways like the social enterprises, tourism. It's a multi. Lots of people can get involved in protecting wildlife. And I felt like by writing the book we could get more people engaged in conservation. And so it's really exciting when tourists come and say, oh, I've read your book and the guerrilla group you're talking about, I'm visiting it today and I'm looking forward to meeting them. That's really nice. So it just shows that you can get, people get, getting interested in wildlife conservation just by reading a book and then they want to come to Uganda and see the gorillas, which is wonderful.
[01:03:26] Speaker B: So wonderful. Talk about full story and just full circle. It's just, it's such a fantastic. Yeah, your book is so your story, the, the, your idea, your work, all of these things are just so inspirational. And one of the last questions I love to ask everybody that comes on because I never know what anyone's going to say.
If you could give one piece of advice or multiple piece of advice as whatever you would like to share, what should we walk away from this interview with you? What would you like us to think about?
[01:04:08] Speaker C: I guess there are many pieces of advice, but I think one advice piece of advice I would like to give, which I was given as a bed student by another primatologist, doctor Biri Tegaudikas, who studied, was the first to study a long term study of orangutans. I went to one of her talks in London, I think at London Zoo, and it's follow your dreams and the rest will follow because a lot of people get concerned that, you know, they want to fit in with everybody else, but they also have their own private dream, their own dream. Their calling, you could call it that. And they get distracted because they're trying to. I want, I have my calling, but I want to be like everyone else. But I feel that if you just follow your calling, everything else will fall into place. The right people that that company that you want will come that will help you to follow your calling. And I think that's what I always tell people. I had my dream of wanting to protect wildlife and it's happened, you know, protecting the gorillas and other wildlife. And I've had the right people coming along. My husband really supports my work and so many other people have come along, including you, Brooke, you know, and so it's important for people to follow their calling. Actually, my sons right now, you know, they love animals because they've always come with me to the field. They really like animals.
My youngest son also wrote an article, tendo, about COVID and gorillas during the pandemic. Right. Currently they want to be football players. My older one must be a soccer player, college athlete. So he's starting in college in America as a, playing college soccer.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Amazing.
[01:05:44] Speaker C: And I'm like, yeah, let him do whatever. And he keeps telling people, I'm going to, I want to become famous and then donate to my mom's wildlife work. So, yes, I have already dove there already.
[01:05:56] Speaker B: Amazing.
[01:05:59] Speaker C: I have a ready donut.
[01:06:03] Speaker B: It's like, yeah, sweetie, you get famous. Please. I'll take that, Chuck.
[01:06:07] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. We'll be counting on you to keep, to keep the gorillas going. Yeah, exactly.
But they, you know, they have friends in the Bwindi community. They play soccer with them and, you know, him and his younger brother. And so, yeah, I'm, it's nice to, one thing I'll say is people should follow their dreams, the rest will follow. And also, it's very important to protect wildlife because when we protect the wildlife, ultimately we end up protecting ourselves. Because when the wildlife and the planet is doing well, then we are also going to be doing well. Whether it means climate change, whether it means biodiversity threats to biodiversity destruction, we can, if we do something about climate, we do something about biodiversity, ultimately we're making our future much brighter.
[01:06:59] Speaker B: I could not agree more. That might be the perfect way to wrap up this conversation. And just, Gladys, just thank you. Thank you. As somebody who completely respects your work, thank you for writing this book. Thank you for teaching all of us about guerrilla conservation and being the pioneer in, I mean, now in retrospect, it seems so obvious, of course, public health and conservation, those things totally go in line. But it took someone like you to put it on the global conservation stage that we need to talk about both aspects if we're going to have healthy humans and healthy wildlife. So again, thank you, Gladys, for everything. Thank you for sitting down with me and sharing your story with everybody who tuned in today.
[01:07:46] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much Brooke, and hopefully you get to visit us and see all this work in action.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: That's a low.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you've been inspired by the incredible stories, insights, and knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
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[01:08:30] Speaker B: Mean the world to me.
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This is Brooke signing off. Remember, together we will rewild the planet.
