Updated
women in conservation Uganda lies at the heart of Uganda’s commitment to protecting its extraordinary wildlife heritage for generations to come. Women now work at every level of gorilla conservation in Uganda: as Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers and trackers, as guides leading gorilla treks, as vets and scientists, and as the community entrepreneurs whose businesses give villages around Bwindi a reason to protect the forest. The change is recent and incomplete, but you will see it on your trek. This guide covers who these women are, why their roles matter for conservation, and how visitors can support them.
The role of women in Ugandan conservation: rangers, researchers, and community leaders
Rangers, trackers and guides
For most of its history Uganda’s ranger force was almost entirely male. Patrol work is physically hard, often means nights in remote camps, and was long seen locally as unsuitable for women. Over the past two decades the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has recruited more women. Today women serve as armed rangers, as trackers who find the gorillas each morning and as ranger guides who brief visitors and lead treks. In Bwindi it is now common to be led to a gorilla family by a woman.
Their presence matters beyond fairness. Much ranger work is community liaison: talking to farmers after crop raiding, explaining park rules and gathering information about snares and illegal entry. Women rangers can reach women in neighbouring households more easily, and those women are often the ones collecting firewood and medicinal plants at the forest edge. Challenges remain, including long postings away from family, safety on patrol, and few women in senior command roles. To learn how daily tracking works, read our guide to how rangers find gorillas every morning.
Vets and scientists
One of the best-known figures in Ugandan conservation is Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, UWA’s first wildlife veterinarian. In the 1990s she investigated an outbreak of scabies in Bwindi gorillas that was traced to contact with people living near the park. Gorillas share about 98% of their DNA with humans and catch human diseases easily. That experience led her to found Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) in 2003, which improves health care in communities around Bwindi so that people and gorillas are less likely to infect each other.
CTPH trains village health volunteers, supports family planning and hygiene, and monitors gorilla health. Its Gorilla Conservation Coffee brand buys coffee from farmers near the park at a premium. In 2021 the United Nations Environment Programme named Dr Kalema-Zikusoka a Champion of the Earth. Women also make up a growing share of the Ugandan researchers working on gorilla ranging, forest ecology and human–wildlife conflict, through Makerere University and the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, the research institute based at Ruhija in Bwindi.
The most famous woman in gorilla science, Dian Fossey, worked across the border in Rwanda’s Virungas from 1967 to 1985. Her long-term study of individually known gorillas laid the foundations of the monitoring methods Ugandan teams use today. Read more in our guide to Volcanoes National Park, where her grave can be visited.
Women at the forest edge
In the farming villages around Bwindi and Mgahinga, women carry most of the daily costs of living beside a park. They collect firewood and water, tend fields that gorillas, baboons and bush pigs raid, and care for families with limited health services. They are also central to the solutions. Savings groups, nurseries raising native tree seedlings, and village health networks are often run by women. When these work, households depend less on the forest and the park gains supporters.
Gorilla tourism helps pay for this through Uganda’s revenue-sharing scheme. Every gorilla permit includes a US$10 levy for neighbouring communities, and 20% of park entry fees also go to frontline parishes. Community committees decide how the money is spent, on projects such as health centres, schools and livestock. Women’s representation on those committees has grown, though it is not yet equal.
Women in the tourism economy
Tourism has given many women around Bwindi their first income under their own control. Craft cooperatives sell baskets, jewellery and textiles at the park gates and in lodge shops. In Buhoma, Ride 4 a Woman combines a craft and sewing workshop with bicycle tours run by local women. Women work as lodge staff, cooks and managers, as porters on treks, and as guides on village walks and cultural visits. Our guide to women entrepreneurs around Bwindi covers these businesses in detail.
How visitors can support women in conservation
The simplest ways are also the most direct. Hire a porter on your trek, and ask for a woman porter if you like, since many women now register with the porters’ associations. Buy crafts directly from cooperatives rather than from resellers. Choose a community walk run by a women’s group, and drink Gorilla Conservation Coffee or buy local coffee at lodges that source it from growers near the park. If you want to donate, give to established organisations with a track record around Bwindi rather than to one-off appeals. Our guide to community-run tourism near Bwindi lists more options.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Women serve as UWA rangers, trackers and ranger guides in Bwindi and Mgahinga, and many visitors are led to their gorilla family by a woman.
She was the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s first wildlife vet and founded Conservation Through Public Health, which links community health and gorilla protection around Bwindi. She was named a UN Champion of the Earth in 2021.
Often, yes. Porters are allocated at the trailhead through local associations, and you can ask your guide whether a woman porter is available.
Through jobs in lodges and as porters and guides, through craft and coffee sales, and through revenue-sharing projects such as health centres and schools paid for by permit fees.
