Conservation Through Public Health, Entebbe, Uganda.
Gorilla Conservation Coffee, Entebbe, Uganda.
Front Public Health. 2021 Aug 12;9:655175. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.655175. eCollection 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic, affecting all countries, with millions of cases and deaths, and economic disruptions due to lockdowns, also threatens the health and conservation of endangered mountain gorillas. For example, increased poaching due to absence of tourism income, led to the killing on 1st June 2020 of a gorilla by a hungry community member hunting duiker and bush pigs. Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), a grassroots NGO and non-profit founded in 2003 promotes biodiversity conservation by enabling people to co-exist with wildlife through integrated programs that improve animal health, community health, and livelihoods in and around Africa's protected areas and wildlife rich habitats. Through these programs, we have helped to mitigate these impacts. CTPH worked with Uganda Wildlife Authority and other NGOs to improve great ape viewing guidelines and prevent transmission of COVID-19 between people and gorillas. Park staff, Gorilla Guardians herding gorillas from community land to the park and Village Health and Conservation Teams were trained to put on protective face masks, enforce hand hygiene and a 10-meter great ape viewing distance. To reduce the communities' need to poach, CTPH found a UK-based distributor, for its Gorilla Conservation Coffee social enterprise enabling coffee farmers to earn revenue in the absence of tourism and provided fast growing seedlings to reduce hunger in vulnerable community members. Lessons learned show the need to support non-tourism dependent community livelihoods, and more responsible tourism to the great apes, which CTPH is advocating to governments, donors and tour companies through an Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance policy brief.
新冠疫情影响到所有国家，导致数百万人感染和死亡，并因封锁而造成经济中断，这也威胁到濒危山地大猩猩的健康和保护。例如，由于旅游业收入的减少，偷猎活动有所增加，导致 2020 年 6 月 1 日，一名饥饿的社区成员在猎杀小羚羊和丛林猪时杀死了一只大猩猩。成立于 2003 年的草根非政府组织和非营利组织“通过公共卫生进行保护”（CTPH）通过实施改善动物健康、社区健康和生计的综合项目，促进生物多样性保护，使人们能够与野生动物共存，这些项目在非洲保护区和野生动物丰富的栖息地内外开展。通过这些项目，我们已经帮助减轻了这些影响。CTPH 与乌干达野生动物管理局和其他非政府组织合作，改善了大猿观赏指南，防止了新冠病毒在人与大猩猩之间的传播。公园工作人员、大猩猩守护者将大猩猩从社区土地赶回公园，以及村庄卫生和保护小组接受了培训，以便戴上防护口罩、执行手部卫生和保持 10 米的大猿观赏距离。为了减少社区偷猎的需求，CTPH 找到了一家英国分销商，推广其大猩猩保护咖啡社会企业，使咖啡农在没有旅游业的情况下也能获得收入，并提供快速生长的树苗，以减少弱势社区成员的饥饿感。经验教训表明，需要支持非旅游业依赖的社区生计，并采取更负责任的方式来对待大猿，CTPH 通过非洲民间社会组织生物多样性联盟的政策简报，向政府、捐赠者和旅游公司倡导这一点。
