+44 20 7937 4408 info@atta.travel
Join Atta Log in

Member News

Previous Posts
Archives
02 February 2017

Join us in creating a safer environment for gorillas

We're on a mission to encourage travellers to wear face masks when visiting the mountain gorillas of Uganda and Rwanda.

Last year, we went to the Tusk conservation lecture in London in which Dr. Gladys Kalema Zikusoka of Conservation Through Public Health noted that wearing face masks can drastically reduce passing on human diseases to the gorillas.

It's not currently enforced because the governments of Uganda and Rwanda are nervous of the measure affecting tourism. However, we strongly feel that if our clients knew what a difference it made, they would be more than happy to wear a mask. 

In a couple of weeks, we'll be sending out a press release stating our intention - and that of others in the industry - to ask all our clients to 'mask up' when they go on a gorilla trek.

We'll be providing face masks and making a point of informing them how important it is to protect the gorillas from human diseases. 

If you would like to be included in our press release - and we'd love for as many people and companies as possible to get behind this - or find out more, please email heather@jacadatravel.com by 7th February 2017.

If we can prove that travellers will happily wear masks, we can move closer to it becoming enforced, just as it is when seeing other primates in the wild.

Some supporting statements: 

‘Wearing masks is not an inconvenience: it is a simple step to safeguard the health of critically endangered mountain gorillas.’ – Dan Bucknell, Executive Director of Tusk.

‘Wearing masks when visiting the critically endangered gorillas ensures the best protection from our human diseases.’ – Dr. Gladys Kalema Zikusoka, Founder of Conservation Through Public Health.

‘A simple human sneeze travels seven metres, and gorillas have no immunity to the bugs we routinely pick up on the plane over.’ – Jillian Miller, Executive Director of The Gorilla Organisation.