Conservation is a team sport. So much of the attention is always paid to the scientists and documentary hosts who become the faces of the efforts to save species, that it can be easy to overlook all of the folks who, directly and indirectly, make their work possible. These folks vary from the permit and logistics specialists who pave the way for work to happen in the country to porters, cooks, and guides, without which the fieldwork would be impossible to the lab workers who process data and samples that come in from the field.
It also includes the fundraisers, the thankless few who work tirelessly to drum up the financial support that is needed to make fieldwork and conservation projects possible.
It's an area of the field that I know very little about, so when I heard about Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species, by Greg Cummings, I was curious enough to pick up a copy.
Cummings spent nearly two decades as the executive director and fundraiser for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, dedicated to saving the endangered mountain gorillas of Central Africa. It was a field that would have seemed unlikely for him to fall into at the beginning, having no experience with wildlife or conservation projects before deciding that he needed a new job one day. He poured himself into his new role with considerable passion and vigor, and set about becoming a champion for the imperiled apes.
It almost makes me feel bad that I couldn't stand his book, and, by association, him.
I don't know much about raising money for nonprofit causes on the scale that Cummings is attempting, but I know it's hard. No matter how great the cause, there are always limited funds and a lot of competition. I also know that people skills are a major part of the job. To that end, I'm amazed that the author managed to raise any money. His book is just so... whiny. Whiny and angry. Perpetually indignant that he's not getting the support that he feels the organization needs, disapproving about virtually everyone that he works with, suspicious of every nonprofit he encounters, and constantly frustrated with the celebrities that he hits up for contributions. (There are a few references to celebrities telling him - sometimes quite flatly - that if he doesn't back off with the hard sale, they will simply stop donated to the Fund). He seems to fall into the mental trap that I so often see folks working for nonprofits tumble into, where you see yourself as the good guy, the savior, the hero - and anyone who isn't immediately in lockstep with you becomes the villain.
And yes, I admit, with professional bias, I find his barbs about the zoos - the ones that in many cases are supporting his work, as he admits in the book in several places - to be obnoxious and ungrateful. He never says what's wrong with the zoos, but gives that trite line that I hate so much about how gorillas would be better of dead than in zoos, a bit of pearl-clutching I've always found abhorrent. He feuds bitterly with Dr. Terry Maple, the conservation-scientist best known for the vast improvements in gorilla husbandry and welfare he ushered in at Zoo Atlanta. When the Los Angeles Zoo lands a prize fundraising opportunity that Cummings wanted for his fund, he complains that the money might as well have been burnt for all the good it does. I disagree strongly, and, again, pointing out the times that the zoos have funded mountain gorilla conservation (including the provision of direct medical treatment, as was NOT mentioned in his book), the less credible he really seems to me.
Cummings' defeats - and the infighting with other gorilla conservationists - eventually ended his involvement with the Fund, and he ends the book somewhat burned out. I'm not sure if it seems like much of a loss for gorilla conservation. He was able to raise some money, yes - but it feels like he turned off as many potential supporters as he would have gained.
Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species at Amazon.com
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