GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA - Founder/CEO, Conservation Through Public Health - UN Champion of the Earth for Science & Innovation

How do some people face incredible tragedies and find within these experiences inspiration to improve the lives of others? Our guest today lost her grandfather, who was the assassinated Prime Minister of the Buganda Kingdom, and her father, who was disappeared by Idi Amin, and yet she went on to become a leading conservationist.

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Uganda's first full-time wildlife veterinarian and the Founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health. Interested in animals from a young age, she pursued her studies at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London before returning to Uganda. In the time since, she's worked tirelessly to preserve the animals of Uganda, being awarded the Whitley Gold Award, Sierra Club Earth Care Award, Edinburgh Medal, National Geographic Explorer, and most recently an appointment to become a United Nations Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation. She is author of Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.

"I was really excited to win the UN Champion of the Earth Award for our One Health approach to conservation. I was so excited when Dr. Jane Goodall wrote the foreword of my book, and she really has a big focus now on the younger generation through Roots and Shoots. And being that I developed my career by setting up a wildlife club at high school so that from a young age teenagers should know that they can make a difference. They don't have to be much older to make a difference.

Even as a teenager, you can make a huge difference. I'm excited. My son wrote a book Zookeeper for a Week, which he wrote during the pandemic because he had spent a week at the zoo when he was 13. And when he was 16, he was able to write this book.

So you're never too young to make a difference. And I think what I would like to tell many young people is to follow your dreams and the rest will follow. Even if what you're trying to do is something that no one has ever done before. Or let's say women are not considered, it's a male-dominated profession. Wildlife conservation, veterinary medicine in Uganda is still very male-dominated. And you shouldn't really worry about what people think about you, what culture, or society expects you to be doing. If you feel that it's an important thing to do, you should go ahead and do it. And it's so important to protect the natural world, to protect nature and the wildlife because we, we protect nature, we protect nature. We are ultimately protecting ourselves. Gorillas are so few numbers still. I mean, we are happy that the numbers are growing because of so many successful conservation efforts."

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