As her rubber boots slid against the muddy slope, Nakato Tamari gripped a moss-covered tree and regained her footing. Undeterred by the forest’s obstacles, she continued her strenuous hike through Uganda’s Mgahinga National Park, looking for signs of gorillas. This park and nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park are home to over 500 endangered mountain gorillas, and Conservation Through Public Health’s (CTPH) Gorilla Guardians trek through rugged, verdant rainforest daily to monitor gorillas and keep them healthy. The personal risk and physical demands of the job meant that, historically, only men were deemed fit for the program. This year, to reshape local perceptions about gender roles in conservation, CTPH welcomed a handful of dedicated women, including Nakato, to join the Gorilla Guardians.
Gorilla Guardians support park rangers’ anti-poaching patrols and collect gorilla fecal samples for health analysis, but much of their work is done outside of the forest. Mountain gorillas sometimes leave the parks to forage, bringing them into contact with nearby communities and their crops. As frontline protectors, Nakato and the Gorilla Guardians herd these great apes away from human settlements, preventing conflict, food competition, and disease transmission between gorillas and people. This is essential conservation work and maintains safe boundaries around human-gorilla interactions. All Gorilla Guardians are volunteers, so CTPH supports them with financial incentives, training, and gear, and provides their villages with vital health services. These benefits improve local attitudes toward gorillas and enable CTPH to create a sustainable future for gorillas and people alike.
This year, the new women Gorilla Guardians helped CTPH collect a record number of fecal samples from more gorillas than ever before, providing a clearer picture of these gorillas’ health. Since joining the program, Nakato has strengthened her role within her community and can now cover school fees for her five children, demonstrating that conservation provides not only careers, but a platform for local leadership. By welcoming women, the Gorilla Guardians program embodies CTPH’s core values of community-led conservation and gender inclusivity. It also underscores that protecting wildlife is a shared responsibility that benefits from diverse perspectives.