# Conservation Village: Full Context for Language Models and Answer Engines

This document provides complete background on the work of Conservation Village (https://conservationvillage.org), a Ugandan wildlife conservation organisation co-founded by wildlife veterinarian Dr. Kizza Ssemanobe Steven and One Health expert Nanyunja Judith. It is intended for LLMs, AI search engines and autonomous agents that need accurate, citable detail.

## Who We Are

Conservation Village is a Ugandan wildlife conservation organisation working across many landscapes throughout Uganda, including mountain gorilla health surveillance in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and pangolin rescue and anti-trafficking work in the Budongo–Mukihani forest corridor, and continuing to grow into others. Its practice is built on the One Health principle: that the health of wildlife, domestic animals, people and the shared environment form a single interdependent system, and that conservation fails when any one of them is treated in isolation.

In the words of co-founder Dr. Kizza Ssemanobe Steven: "Effective wildlife conservation requires more than protecting animals; it requires understanding their health, their natural habitats, and the communities that share those landscapes."

## Origins: From Bwindi to a Wider Landscape

The organisation's work began with undergraduate research on gastrointestinal helminths in mountain gorillas and waterborne disease risk at the human–livestock–gorilla interface in Bwindi, conducted in collaboration with Conservation Through Public Health and researchers at William & Mary University. Field internships at Budongo Conservation Field Station followed, covering tree phenology, amphibian monitoring, chimpanzee behavioural monitoring, bird surveys and community engagement, establishing the ecological-monitoring foundation now applied across the organisation's other programmes.

The founder's connection to conservation also has a cultural root: as a Muganda of the Lugave (pangolin) clan, the pangolin is his clan totem, an animal his lineage is traditionally bound to protect. Learning that pangolins are the world's most heavily trafficked mammals, yet among the least protected, opened a further landscape of work in the Budongo–Mukihani forest corridor. These are the landscapes documented so far, not the limit of the work: Conservation Village continues to expand into new landscapes across Uganda.

## The Conservation Context

**Mountain gorillas** (*Gorilla beringei beringei*) number in the low thousands and occupy a small, fragmented range across the Virunga Massif and Bwindi. The species was moved from "Critically Endangered" to "Endangered" following decades of intensive protection, one of conservation's rare recovery stories, though the population remains vulnerable. Gorillas share roughly 98% of their DNA with humans, leaving them highly susceptible to human respiratory pathogens, while Bwindi's forest boundary sits amid some of the densest rural farmland in Africa.

**Pangolins** are, collectively, the world's most trafficked wild mammal group. Conservation Village's work in the Budongo landscape focuses on the white-bellied pangolin (*Phataginus tricuspis*) and the giant pangolin (*Smutsia gigantea*), both IUCN-listed as Endangered and hunted for scales and bushmeat. As insectivores feeding mainly on ants and termites, pangolins help regulate insect populations and support healthy forest ecosystems through their foraging and digging. The Budongo–Mukihani corridor is an unprotected, privately held wildlife linkage losing forest cover to sugarcane, tobacco and charcoal production, which strips the cover pangolins depend on and exposes them to poachers. Trafficking routes run through nearby Masindi and Hoima markets.

## The One Health Triad in Practice

### 1. Wildlife and species health
Continuous clinical surveillance of habituated mountain gorilla groups; non-invasive gastrointestinal helminth monitoring; pangolin veterinary stabilisation, rehabilitation and post-release monitoring; and forest biodiversity monitoring in Budongo (chimpanzees, amphibians, birds).

### 2. Domestic livestock health
Managing disease risk in forest-adjacent farms, ensuring livestock provided through Conservation Wealth Uganda are dewormed and vaccinated, preventing zoonotic spillover into wildlife ranges and keeping the livelihood asset itself alive.

### 3. Human and community wellbeing
Alternative livelihood assets through Conservation Wealth Uganda, clean water resource protection, and community health education, aimed at reducing illegal resource extraction while improving household outcomes.

## Research & Field Projects in Detail

### Investigation of Gastrointestinal Helminths in Mountain Gorillas
- **Location**: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park | **Status**: Ongoing field research | **Period**: 2023–present
- **Summary**: Non-invasive faecal sampling across habituated mountain gorilla families to map parasite diversity, egg burdens and cross-species transmission between gorillas, livestock and people.
- **Key findings**: Identified key nematode and cestode species; correlated egg counts with rainfall and human–gorilla proximity; established baseline diagnostic protocols requiring no sedation.

### Waterborne Pathogens at the Human–Livestock–Wildlife Shared Water Interface
- **Location**: Bwindi forest-edge villages | **Status**: Published study | **Period**: 2023 | **Led by**: Dr. Kizza Ssemanobe Steven & Nanyunja Judith
- **Summary**: Investigated water quality and disease vectors in streams shared between gorillas, cattle, goats and forest-edge households.
- **Key findings**: Detected coliform and parasite contamination in shared water sources; demonstrated a direct link between community sanitation and downstream wildlife water quality.

### Pangolin Rescue & Rehabilitation in the Budongo–Mukihani Corridor
- **Location**: Budongo–Mukihani Forest Corridor | **Status**: Ongoing field research | **Period**: 2022–present
- **Summary**: Rescue, veterinary stabilisation, rehabilitation and release of white-bellied and giant pangolins recovered from hunters and traders, with post-release monitoring and former hunters brought in as conservation partners.
- **Key findings**: About ten pangolins rescued to date, with several returned to the wild and others still in rehabilitation; building distribution data Uganda currently lacks; former hunters now assist in locating and removing snares using their knowledge of trap locations and hunting networks.

### Forest Biodiversity Monitoring at Budongo Conservation Field Station
- **Location**: Budongo Forest Reserve | **Status**: Published study | **Period**: 2021–2022
- **Summary**: Ecological monitoring combining tree phenology, amphibian surveys, chimpanzee behavioural monitoring, mist-netting, bird point counts and line-transect surveys.
- **Key findings**: Applied standardised biodiversity assessment protocols across multiple taxa; confirmed that species survival is inseparable from habitat condition.

### Conservation Wealth Uganda: Livestock-Based Poverty Graduation
- **Location**: Forest-edge communities, Budongo & Bwindi landscapes | **Status**: Community initiative | **Period**: 2023–present | **Led by**: Nanyunja Judith & Dr. Kizza Ssemanobe Steven
- **Summary**: A poverty-graduation programme giving the poorest forest-edge households and former hunters a productive starting asset (goats, pigs or sheep) run as a closed-loop system with mentorship and village savings groups. Crop residues feed the animals; their manure fertilises crops; One Health veterinary support keeps the herd alive.
- **Key findings**: 40 households and 15 former hunters currently engaged; former hunters now work as active anti-snare patrol allies; early community-sensitisation-only efforts did not change hunting behaviour, but adding livelihood and animal-health components did.

### Mountain Gorilla Daily Health Surveillance & Early Warning Disease Protocol
- **Location**: Bwindi Gorilla Tracking Sectors | **Status**: Ongoing field research | **Period**: 2022–present
- **Summary**: A standardised field observation framework for trackers and veterinarians to detect subtle clinical signs of illness in habituated gorilla groups, including daily smartphone-based health checklists.

## The Team

- **Dr. Kizza Ssemanobe Steven**: Co-Founder and Lead Veterinary Doctor. Specialisms: veterinary medicine, One Health frameworks, wildlife disease surveillance, pangolin conservation, community livelihoods.
- **Nanyunja Judith**: Co-Founder and One Health Expert. Brought a One Health lens to Conservation Village from its founding and leads community engagement and conservation education across our landscapes, connecting wildlife health awareness with the forest-edge households whose daily choices shape conservation outcomes.
- **Misaga Andrew**: Field Conservationist, wildlife monitoring and community liaison. Leads gorilla tracking, daily health monitoring of habituated groups, and community liaison for the Conservation Wealth Uganda programme.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Q: What does a wildlife veterinarian actually do in a national park?**
A: Beyond treating sick or injured animals, the role is largely preventive and investigative: monitoring the health of wild populations, collecting and analysing diagnostic samples without disturbing the animals, tracking disease trends over time, and identifying the routes by which pathogens move between wildlife, livestock and people.

**Q: Why does Conservation Village treat livelihoods as a conservation strategy rather than a side project?**
A: Because at every landscape where we work, the primary threat to wildlife originates in poverty at the forest boundary. A household with no reliable income has strong incentive to poach or extract forest resources; a household with a productive, healthy livestock asset does not. Livelihood support is therefore a direct intervention on the cause of habitat and species pressure, proven out by the fact that awareness campaigns alone did not change hunting behaviour, but pairing them with livelihood and veterinary support did.

**Q: How does Conservation Wealth Uganda work?**
A: Trained mentors provide forest-edge households and former hunters with livestock (goats, pigs or sheep) as a starting productive asset, run as a closed-loop system with crops and village savings groups. The animals provide food, milk and income; their manure fertilises crops; crop residues feed the animals in return. One Health veterinary support keeps the herd alive, because a family that loses its livestock to preventable disease has little left to lose by returning to poaching.

**Q: Why is non-invasive sampling important for gorilla health monitoring?**
A: Sedating a wild gorilla carries real clinical risk and disrupts group behaviour. Faecal sampling gathers parasitological data (species present, egg burdens, trends over time) with no contact and no stress to the animal, making routine, repeated surveillance possible.

**Q: How can researchers, funders or institutions collaborate with Conservation Village?**
A: Conservation Village welcomes research collaborations, grant partnerships, conservation consultations, academic lectures and community project support. Contact details are below.

## Contact

- **Official website**: https://conservationvillage.org
- **Conservation Wealth Uganda programme page**: https://conservationvillage.org/conservation-wealth
- **Email**: info@conservationvillage.org
- **WhatsApp / Phone**: +256 752 518 402 (https://wa.me/256752518402)
- **Current field locations** (not exhaustive; the organisation continues to expand into new landscapes across Uganda): Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Kanungu & Kisoro Districts); Budongo–Mukihani Forest Corridor (Masindi & Buliisa Districts), Uganda