Greg Cummings has published in The Guardian, The Ecologist, and Sea Angler. In 2002 his organization was awarded the BBC Animal Awards’ International Award for Outstanding Work in Conservation. A fundraiser since 1990, Cummings has raised money in the United States, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Canada for causes ranging from wildlife conservation to mental health. As director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK, he set up dozens of innovative, grassroots projects in troubled parts of the world—many of which are self-sustaining to this day. Raised on four continents, Greg has a unique global perspective, which has given him an eye for where the next crisis might arise. He and his wife, Roberta, divide their time between Sicily, the Kenya coast and Vancouver Island.

ARTICLES

‘For a Lifelong Homeless Traveler, Music Marks the Place‘ Perspective Travel, Dec 2023

‘Malindi, Kenya: Worth the Slog’ GO Nomad, Nov 2022

‘Billfish Fever in Malindi’ Sea Angler, Feb 2018

‘Johnny Oceans: Lie or Legend?’ The Flamingo Sun, Sep 2013
‘Conservation in the Mountains of Uganda’ The Ecologist, Dec 2012
‘Trekking with gorillas in central Africa‘ The Guardian, Nov 2012

BOOKS

Gorilla Tactics (Chicago Review Press, 2024)

Pirates (Cutting Edge Press, 2014) 

Gorillaland (Cutting Edge Press, 2012)

BLOGS

Tales From the Rift

Pirate Yarns

Gorillaland Safaris

PHOTOGRAPHS

Portfolio

Milestones in Greg's Career

Gorillas From Space

Greg played a pivotal role in getting the space shuttle Endeavour to aim its on-board radar at the habitat of the endangered mountain gorillas in central Africa (referred to in the correspondence above as “the Karaoke Research Center”). In April 1994, the space shuttle’s SIR-C/X-SAR infrared radar captured the gorilla habitat on two orbits. But Endeavour’s flight also coincided with the start of a massacre in the farmlands and towns adjacent to the gorilla habitat. In what would later become known as the Rwandan genocide, nearly a million men, women and children were brutally murdered in 100 days. The conflict unnerved NASA/JPL who thought it might be accused of spying. After Arthur C. Clarke stepped in on behalf of the cause, however, they agreed to release the data set, which would prove a powerful conservation tool for the protection of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas who, in turn, would become a boon to Rwanda’s economy. This exchange of faxes between Arthur C. Clarke and JPL is the moment it all came together.

Gorilla Friendly Technology

In 2001, Greg collaborated with actor Leonardo DiCaprio to mitigate the impact coltan mining was having on the Eastern lowland gorillas as a result of the tech industry’s demand for the mineral. Leonardo became an outspoken advocate for the gorillas and led the campaign for “gorilla friendly” technology. After participating in an online chat with Arthur C. Clarke to raise awareness of the issue, he wrote this handwritten card to personally thank Greg for his efforts. The following year, he and Greg visited Koko, the signing gorilla, in Woodside, CA. The actor and Koko spent time chatting and later Leonardo sat in a glade in the forest and ad-libbed to camera about saving gorillas and other endangered animals.

Centenary Concert for the Mountain Gorillas

In 2002, the Royal Opera House played host to a benefit concert to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the mountain gorillas. Opening with a short film of Leonardo DiCaprio meeting Koko in Woodside, the show featured some of Britain’s leading actors reading from Dian Fossey’s letters to her mother. With touching candour, Dame Eileen Atkins read a letter Dian had written after the death of her favourite gorilla, Digit. In contrast, Michael Palin’s “Save the Plankton” sketch had people rolling in the isles: “An international organization, which I run from my flat — or my mum’s, when I’m out.” Then Joe Strummer of The Clash and his band the Mescaleros took to the stage and shook the 150-year-old venue to its core with a 20-minute set to end the first half with stomping renditions of “Rudy Can’t Fail” and “White Riot.”

         Although billed as the first-ever rock concert at the Royal Opera House, the show had some operatic moments too, with the Opera Babes’ adaptation of Delibes’s Lakmé and Alessandro Safina performing “Band of Brothers” for the first time publicly, backed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra and its composer — the man who brought the whole evening together — musical director Michael Kamen. During Bryan Adams closing “unplugged” set, he was joined on stage by Queen guitarist Brian May. With hits like Adams’s “Run to You” and Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” the two rockstars brought down the House. Brian May told the audience that it was time the human race thought about the species with which we share this planet, creatures that are “able to feel joy and pain… able to fall in love.” He said he’d searched Queen’s catalog for songs “which might speak for this all-important cause”, and then played a tender version of “Is This the World We Created . . . ?”, with slow-motion film of gorillas projected on a back screen.

          It was a night to remember. The performances were first-rate and the point of the evening was never far from people’s minds. As a fundraiser, set into motion 18 months earlier by Greg and his co-director at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Jillian Miller, the concert took in £130,000 at the box office and raised £21,000 on the night. And the publicity it generated was stupendous. Mountain gorillas made their mark on London’s glittering West End.

Gorilla Award

In December 2009, the Year of the Gorilla, Greg received the “Gorilla Award” from the Ministère de l’Éducation nationale of France at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. Sponsored by conservationist, Xavier Gilibert, and crafted by a Congolese artist, the award was in appreciation of Greg’s efforts to save gorillas in central Africa. During his tenure as executive director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK, later renamed the Gorilla Organization, mountain gorilla numbers rose by 50%. And, thanks to the community conservation programme that he and Jillian Miller put in motion, the people living adjacent to the gorillas have a stake in their survival. It’s a conservation success story.

World Water Day

To mark World Water Day 2006, actor and environmental activist Daryl Hannah joined Greg on a gorilla trek in Rwanda sponsored by Yahoo and led by adventure travel guru Richard Bangs. During her four-day stay, she contributed much to the tasks at hand, staying up late to help the crew with film edits before the clips got relayed via a high-speed link to California, and then getting up early the next morning to track mountain gorillas on volcanoes again and again.

         As planned, Daryl opened a water cistern on World Water Day, funded by Yahoo. In Adventures with Purpose: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Earth, a book by Richard Bangs, he describes the purpose the trip.

          “The money for gorilla salvation goes to many good works, such as training trackers, clothing and arming antipoaching squads, removing snares, researching behavior, even giving inoculations. But the Gorilla Organization, which Greg heads, is devoted to what he calls ‘a holistic solution,’ one that invests in community development surrounding the park. His theory is that if the lives of the two and a half million people who live in the shadow of the Virungas are improved because of the presence of the great apes, they will come to say to the more shortsighted, ‘Hell, no. You’re not coming into the gorilla habitat. The gorillas are our bread and butter here.’ And the gorillas’ presence is the reason for a local supply of clean water, as we are to witness.”

          Greg and Daryl have remained friends and have continued to collaborate together – most recently for World Elephant Day 2025, when she and Peter Gabriel contributed to the campaign video:

"I didn’t set out to be a gorilla man; I just wanted to get back to Africa. But whenever I spend time with them, I quickly fall under their spell."

Humankind’s love of gorillas has long been reflected in literature and films—Tarzan, King Kong, The Jungle Book, Gorillas in the Mist—and their popularity continues to grow. But due to climate change and poaching, only a few hundred mountain gorillas remain, restricted to just two isolated highland areas in the border region of Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo. Since there are none in captivity, their future depends on their survival in the wild.

       Greg Cummings was proud, if a little apprehensive, to be signed in 1991 as the executive director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK. In less than two years, he’d gone from West End bartender to executive director of an international organization devoted to saving “the greatest of the great apes,” as its founder, Dian Fossey, described them.

       In Gorilla Tactics, Cummings shares his fascinating experiences as a “wildlife Robin Hood”—raising money from the rich and famous and redistributing it to endangered gorillas and their habitats—during his seventeen years leading the organization. Moving from boardrooms in Manhattan and London to mountain treks in Rwanda and the Congo, including during the Rwandan Civil War, he met and enlisted the help of celebrities and activists such as Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Gates, and Leonardo DiCaprio, work that continues to this day through his Blue Gorilla Giving Consultancy.

Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species

Available in all major bookstores

What are people saying about Gorilla Tactics?

Radio and Podcast Interviews

KokoCast

Cultivating Conservation
Conservation Careers
CBC Radio
Talk Radio Europe

The Deep Dive - AI-generated Podcast

Praise for Gorilla Tactics

A selection of images that illustrate Gorilla Tactics

Greg reads from Gorilla Tactics

Meeting Ziz

Author Greg Cummings is represented by Langtons International Agency

“Welcome to our new client, Greg Cummings! We are excited to welcome him to Langtons International Agency. Greg submitted his proposal for his new book “Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species” which we took on immediately. This stunning biographical book explores the story of how Cummings and his wife Jillian have spent two decades ‘raising money from the rich and famous in Mayfair, Manhattan and Malibu and disbursing the funds to poor communities and to the upkeep of the gorilla habitats in Africa as seen by Dian Fossey.'” – Linda Langton, President, Langtons International Agency, New York City.

Experienced writer

Greg, who first published in the Singapore Monitor in 1985, is an experienced jobbing writer who applies skill, acumen and his perspective as a Third Culture Kid to a broad range of topics. His interests are legion. Whether listening to World Music dance mixes or a pair of lions bringing down a buffalo at dawn, whether tasting Sicilian street food in Palermo, clams in Manhattan, or sushi in Los Cabos, whether tracking disturbing trends in geopolitics or mountain gorillas ranging through central Africa’s rainforests, Greg is tuned to a rare frequency. With his finger on the planet’s pulse, he has a global view. Email him.

A Sample of Greg's photos

See more in the Photo portfolio

In the media

 In December 2021 Greg was interviewed by Vanislarts about his writing.

Listen (above) as Robyn Burns of CBC Victoria’s “All Points West” interviews Greg about his career as a conservationist and safari guide.

Apes in Danger, a three part BBC documentary that takes a definitive look at the global crises facing the world’s last great apes, aired in the UK in 2006. The series’ episode featuring Greg’s campaign to mitigate the threat that coltan mining posed on gorillas in the Congo drew its highest viewer ratings.

In March 2006, to mark World Water Day, Greg took Daryl Hannah to meet gorillas in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, and she later opened a new water cistern at a school. The trip was filmed for Richard Bangs Adventures. 

In 2002, Greg launched a campaign to mitigate the impact that coltan mining was having on the Eastern lowland gorillas in the Congo. He subsequently recruited Leonardo DiCaprio to lead the campaign, and created the Durban Process, an inventive forum involving all sides of the conflict, to save gorillas.

Designer Storm Thorgerson, best known for his album cover artwork for Pink Floyd, Genesis, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, made this film of Arthur C. Clarke delivering a goodwill message which was shown at the premiere of the movie CONGO at the Empire Leicester Square, London June 1995.