Born in 1954 to Leo Segawa Lwanga, a Ggombolola (subcounty) chief in the Buganda Kingdom of central Uganda, Panta attended school from 1960 to 1972, spending the last two years of A-level at Namilyango College. At Makerere University, he trained as a biologist and teacher graduating in 1976 with a B Sc (2nd Upper) and Concurrent Diploma in Education. He taught for one year at Mt St. Mary’s College Namagunga before rejoining the Zoology Department of Makerere as a Special Assistant. He enrolled for a Master’s degree by research in avian ecology which was awarded in 1982 leading to an appointment as Lecturer in 1983. In 1989, he obtained a PhD in avian ecology at Cambridge University, UK. He taught vertebrate zoology and ecology at Makerere’s Zoology Department for over 10 years before joining the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, also at Makerere, as Director in the mid-1990s.
Having taught ecology, conservation biology and related subjects for that long, and risen to the rank of Associate Professor, he decided to have a taste of real life by moving to work with communities on a USAID-funded biodiversity conservation project in western Uganda in 2004. Over the years, he has developed a keen interest in issues of environment and development and specific interest in biodiversity conservation and management, particularly as they relate to human livelihoods.
Life has not been academics alone since he met a young lady, Dorothy, in the early 1980s. They subsequently got married in 1985 and are blessed with five children, the last two being twins, Wasswa (name of first born boy twin) and Nakato (name of second born girl twin) born in 1993. In the Kiganda culture therefore, he acquired yet another name of Ssalongo (meaning father of twins).
On the national scene Panta has participated in various civil society activities. He was among the people who revived the East Africa Natural History Society, which later became NatureUganda and was its Chairman for over ten years! Until recently he has been chair of the National UNESCO-MAB Committee and is a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology. He chaired the National Steering Committee for the UNDP/GEF-Small Grants for three years. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for Uganda National Parks for three years and has since become an Honorary Wildlife Officer for life. He offers his services to the Kabaka (King of Buganda) by being a member of the Technical Committee on Environment in the Kingdom government.
At the international level, Panta represented Africa on the BirdLife International Global Council between 1998 and 2004; has been a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas since 1994 and was a member of the Pan African Ornithological Congress Committee between 1996 and 2004. He is Vice Chairman to the Board of the Albertine Rift Conservation Society, a UK registered Charity and, since 2003, he has been on the biodiversity expert roster of the GEF Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP Roster). He is also Uganda’s representative to the Convention on Migratory Species Scientific Council. These foregoing activities have enabled him to travel widely on four of the six continents.
Between all that, Panta likes nature walks and music and he is a keen naturalist. He firmly believes that development at the cost of our environment is suicidal!! Development should always enhance the integrity of our life support system.
At the end of the USAID-funded conservation project in Western Uganda, he thought he still had something to offer conservation and has joined the Jane Goodall Institute-Uganda as Executive Director to contribute to the JGI mission of advancing the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment of all living things.
