Gabon, Africa: Primate Conservation
[November 2025] The most beautiful place on Earth - hands down. In Gabon, I worked in primate conservation—supporting chimpanzee rescue/rehabilitation efforts and learning what it really takes to protect gorillas and chimpanzees in one of the most biodiversity-rich regions on Earth, while documenting how wildlife medicine, conservation strategy, and real-world field logistics all collide in the Congo Basin.
Gabon feels like one of those chapters that’s been quietly building in the background this whole time. After being in South Africa and seeing what conservation looks like when it’s big, fast, and high-stakes… and after Mexico taught me what it means to do medicine where access is limited and trust is everything… and India showed me what rescue, rehab, and long-term medical management really demands… Gabon is the next step where all of those lessons start to stack on top of each other.
It was systems. It was habitat pressure, health threats, human-wildlife overlap, enforcement realities, funding gaps, and the uncomfortable truth that doing the right thing still takes resources, planning, and people who don’t quit when it gets hard. And this wasn't the highlight reel version of conservation.
This trip is challenged me in a different way too. Mentally—patience, discipline, humility. The kind of growth where you realize you’re not the main character in the forest… you’re just lucky enough to be allowed in it. I learned so much about what surprises me, what scares me, what changes me, and what I think conservation actually requires when you’re up close with it.
Shoutout to Gabon Untouched & the Wild Spirit Foundation and Dr. Chloe Buiting for trusting me enough to be part of the work. This one was so special ;)
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