"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

Visit gorillas and chimpanzees on foot where they live in the wild. Trek the afro-montane forests of the Albertine Rift Valley. Bushwhack remote eco-systems in the Congo Basin. Boat up river through the jungles of Gabon. Hunt with the Ba’aka pygmies in Dzanga Shanga. Join Greg Cummings on his next expedition to Gorillaland, where it all began and still goes on. Visit gorillaland.ca

Radio and Podcast Interviews

KokoCast

Cultivating Conservation
Conservation Careers
CBC Radio
Talk Radio Europe

Praise for Gorilla Tactics

A selection of images that illustrate Gorilla Tactics
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.