By sheer coincidence, I happened to have read an article about Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka , #Uganda's first wildlife veterinarian, a few months ago. So I felt a mix of astonishment and pleasure meeting her today at the National Geographic Explorers Festival today! The main focus of Dr. Gladys' work is the survival of the only 800 mountain gorillas left in the world. Four hundred of them are in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and the rest are in other forests in #Uganda, #Rwanda, and Democratic Republic of Congo #DRC. Dr. Gladys discovered that with people living on the edge of the mountain gorilla’s forest habitat, these close relatives to humans were contracting diseases from livestock feces, bacteria found on scarecrow clothing in the fields, and other accessible points of human and livestock contact. Through postmortem investigations and community reconnaissance, she concluded that the declining health of the mountain gorillas was directly related to poor human conditions in the neighboring communities, poor human health was related to poverty, and poverty was linked to a lack of family planning. #NatGeoFest #wildlifeconservation  #mountaingorillas #wildliferesearch …see more