What is Gorilla Conservation Coffee? And how is it unique?

Hidden in the dense rainforests that stretch across the southwest border of Uganda, dwells a gentle giant that has intrigued and amazed the world for hundreds of years. Uganda is home to half of the estimated 880 mountain gorillas alive today, but struggling for a tomorrow. Surrounding their protected habitat are isolated and impoverished communities. Due to their close proximity both inside and outside the national park, preventable infectious diseases are being spread between humans, gorillas and livestock. This along with habitat encroachment, poaching and economic instability, is threatening the existence of the mountain gorilla.

Gorilla Conservation Coffee is a social enterprise that was launched after Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka visited farmers living adjacent to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Here she learned that the farmers were not being given a fair price for their coffee and were struggling hard to survive, forcing them to use the national park to meet their basic family needs for food and fuel wood

Gorilla Conservation Coffee was created through a partnership between Conservation Through Public Health and World Wide Fund for Nature Switzerland. Gorilla Conservation Coffee pays a premium of $0.50 per kilo above the market price to coffee farmers living next door to the gorillas around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Gorilla Conservation Coffee further supports the farmers through training in sustainable coffee farming and processing. This helps to improve the coffee quality and increase production yield. Supporting local farmers helps to protect the critically endangered gorillas and their fragile habitat.

Conservation Through Public Health is working with Uganda Wildlife Authority, local communities and other organizations, to improve education, healthcare and livelihoods, so that humans and mountain gorillas – like Kanyonyi and his family – can coexist.