Conservation Through Public Health - Wildlife Ranger Challenge 2025

CTPH was established in 2003 with a mission to promote biodiversity conservation by enabling people, gorillas and other wildlife to coexist through improving their health and livelihoods in and around Protected Areas in Africa.

After the founders addressed a scabies outbreak among the then critically endangered mountain gorillas, which was traced back to local communities, they recognized the need for an integrated One Health approach. This approach acknowledges that the health of people, animals, and the environment must be addressed together.

In 2007, CTPH adopted a Population Health and Environment (PHE) approach by adding community-based family planning to the zoonotic disease prevention and One Health model. The key objective is to simultaneously improve access to health services while also helping communities manage their natural resources in ways that improve their health and livelihoods and conserve the critical ecosystems they depend upon, meeting communities’ needs and improving their commitment to well-managed natural resources.

CTPH promotes Gorilla Conservation, One Health and Poverty Alleviation through three integrated programs: Wildlife Conservation, Community Health and Alternative Livelihoods.  We achieve these through delivering services that improve wildlife, livestock and community health; conservation education through peer-to-peer education, community-based behaviour change communication; STEAM based school projects; and conservation friendly livelihoods development through community owned income

CTPH envisions “Thriving Gorilla Populations with Thriving Local Communities.”

Tusk Trust has partnered with CTPH to fund gorilla health monitoring and the rangers who protect mountain gorillas and the communities that surround them.