About the Project

 ”Will great apes survive in the wild by the end of this decade, 2020?”

Great Ape Diaries is environmental photojournalist Gerry Ellis’ personal journey to answer that question. Faced with habitat encroachment, climate change, disease transmission and host of other pressing threats, it’s not clear wild apes will exist outside of captivity in the very near future.

To try to answer this question, Gerry has embarked on the most ambitious project of his 30-year career – a three-year global journey into remote Borneo and Sumatra, and the  heart of Africa to chronicle the issues facing great ape survival. The journey will focus on a global perspective, including interviews with the most prominent people studying and working to save great apes as well as local people who’s lives are inextricably linked to neighboring great apes.

 

Why this Story, and Why Now?

That is perhaps the only simple answer in the great ape story – if not now the question may soon be mute: great apes will be gone.

One of the notable flaws of great apes reporting over the course of the past several decades is that each of the great apes — chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans — has been documented and studied by photographers and writers primarily through the eyes of Western researchers.  And while this documentation has been successful in raising awareness of the great apes plight within the western world, the reporting has provided an incomplete picture of the global status of great apes.

In fact, up to this point, there has not been a single project that has collectively and comprehensively documented all the great apes throughout the world with an aim to synthesize the myriad of issues weighing so heavily on the global great ape community at this point in history.  The interrelationship of key problems facing great apes desperately needs synthesis; the bush-meat trade, illegal logging, habitat loss, intensification of agro-industries, civil war, climate change, disease and the trade in exotic species has resulted in increasing pressure great apes and on critical ape ecosystems.

The Great Ape Diaries is an urgent project.  There is a current (and critical) global alarm being sounded by great ape researchers, scientists and conservationists worldwide warning that  — if significant problems facing great apes in habitats around the world are not addressed quickly and effectively — we may be entering the final decade of great apes survival; wild populations of great apes will become extinct.  If mankind does not act soon with a firm vision for the future of great apes, our closest living relative in the wild will be relegated to life in captivity.  Not only would this be a devastating blow to species’ that shares over 97% of their DNA with humans, but it would be a magnificent failure of civilized society if we prove unable to protect one of the most intelligent charismatic life-forms on the planet.

 

A Unique Perspective

Over the past twenty-five years, thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — of images have been created of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans both in captivity and in the wild.  Yet, despite this voluminous visual reportage of mankind’s closest relatives in the animal kingdom, no single effort has set out to tell the over-arching global story of great apes in photojournalistic form.  This is a primary goal of the Great Ape Diaries.

The Great Ape Diaries project has been in formulation for over twenty years.  Photographer Gerry Ellis (www.GerryEllis.net) began documenting the chimpanzees and mountain gorillas in the central Rift of Africa in 1990.  After a year of shooting and with an intense personal commitment to great apes already established, he then traveled to Borneo to photograph and study orangutans.  These early expeditions became the foundation for two decades of engaging with and documenting great apes in their native habitats.  Gerry’s photographs from these expeditions can be seen to this day in major publications around the world.

The Great Ape Diaries will do more than pick up where Gerry left off in his last visits to each habitat.  With the valuable perspective of previous experience in each region with each ape species, and the benefit of hindsight to guide him, Gerry will return to Equatorial Central and West Africa, Borneo and Sumatra to investigate what have emerged as the key challenges to ape survival over the intervening two decades since he began his work.  His goal will be to create a visual diary of the reality facing great apes in Africa and Indo-Malaysia grounded by Gerry’s in-depth knowledge of the status of apes in each area twenty years prior. It is upon this experience and Gerry’s original and unique body of work that the Great Ape Diaries will build. Gerry has teamed with award-winning documentary filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald to chronicle his journey.

Great Ape Diaries will be an unprecedented perspective on ape life even if only because it avoids a stereotypic natural history look at apes while bringing viewers closer to seeing them in a grander and comprehensive global scheme.  And while the project will necessarily enjoy and utilize the experiences of famous researchers and ape conservationists to provide context, the one critical aspect that sets Great Ape Diaries apart from all previous work will be the focus on telling the story through the eyes, perspectives, and passion of the people who live and work with apes, in situ, mostly out of sight of the rest of the world.  These stakeholders, critical to the long-term survival of great apes in the wild, will include trackers, anti-poaching patrols, ape orphanage staff, native researchers, farmers, poachers, rangers, veterinarians, and park guides.

 

Great Ape Diaries Outreach

The outreach goal of Great Ape Diaries is sharing what Gerry discovers with the broadest possible global audience.  He have set a target of 1.5 million viewers engaged with the project by the end of year one (Phases 1 & 2 combined.)  To accomplish this goal two distinctly different public display forums will reach the widest global audience with the stories surrounding the plight of great apes.  These are:

1. Prominent pedestrian outdoor print exhibits of key photographs from the project.
2. Social media to connect a broad and global demographic to the story of great apes in a modern and interconnected world.

Social media outreach will make use of a dedicated website with an embedded blog that links to the project’s Facebook and Google+ pages and Twitter feed as well as Vimeo and YouTube channels.  In addition to outreach via the project website, Facebook, and Twitter, we will experiment with Google+ and Vimeo, and work hard to create reciprocity with other like-minded activists, photographers and social media sites.   A good portion of our online content will be comprised of an on-going “making of” project documenting the process of actualizing and executing the project.   This “meta” component, housed primarily on the internet, will be in partnership with project sponsors Canon, Pro Photo Supply and a other select players contributing to long-term health of the project.  This “making of” narrative will connect photographers, filmmakers, journalists and students to great apes through documenting and sharing the challenges and rewards of creating a media project on the topic and scale.

 

Documentary Component

Great Ape Diaries primary visual foundation will be an in-depth body of still images and interviews created by Gerry. These will be augmented through several visual approaches to offer the visitor the greatest first-hand experience possible.  In addition to Gerry photographing directly through his Canon DSLR cameras, his still camera will have a micro-videocamera mounted on the leading edge, at eye level, that will capture an intimate look at Gerry’s work in the field as a photojournalist.  This close-up, intimate view will be paired with a second perspective recorded through Skye’s lens as Gerry travels to each region and interacts with apes, researchers, conservationists and others in the process of creating Great Ape Diaries.

 

More about Gerry Ellis               More about Skye Fitzgerald