Gerry Ellis
Founder & Executive Director
Gerry’s filming project in 2001, Wild Orphans, inspired the founding of GLOBIO. GLOBIO is a global awareness nonprofit that creates environmental films and provides visual support to wildlife conservation organizations around the world, and tells their stories globally, while educating the public about our shared environmental challenges. GLOBIO’s mission is to inspire a positive relationship with our environment by connecting species, people and planet.
Under Gerry’s leadership, GLOBIO works with international partners in four critical Focal Regions, across Equatorial Africa and Borneo/Sumatra. GLOBIO focuses on great apes and their habitat to create innovative, locally-driven education solutions to foster conservation and environmental awareness and understanding.
Gerry’s award-winning career as an international wildlife film-maker, photographer, and writer spans three-decades and features work appearing in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, the New York Times, Ranger Rick, and more. He is the author and/or photographer of more than a dozen books, including two in the highly acclaimed National Geographic Kids Book series.
His current work is featured on the GLOBIO YouTube channel Apes Like Us. He is host of the Talking Apes podcast.
“I don’t believe in pixie-dust hope, we have enormous capacity to be kind and do the right thing for all life — we often just need to fully understand the impact of our actions, and know we aren’t going it alone in creating positive change. GLOBIO could be that support.”
— Gerry Ellis,
founder of GLOBIO
Our Team
Communication & Media Manager – Demelza Bond
Born and raised in the UK, and now living in Spain, Demelza has deep lifelong passion for primates and engaging the public to better understand their plight. After receiving a journalism degree at The University of Salford, she volunteered at primate sanctuaries in South Africa, Morocco, Costa Rica and Spain — cultivating real-world, primate experiences and working in communications for international NGOs for a decade before joining GLOBIO. We are excited to have her international perspective and media background to oversee our communications and outreach efforts.
Starting Season 2, September 2022, Demelza is doubling her role at GLOBIO becoming Assistant Producer of the Talking Apes podcast.
Outreach Education Researcher – Maegan Leavendusky
Maegan is in graduate school at Miami University with Project Dragonfly. She has traveled to Belize and Borneo studying non-human primates and great apes as well as digging into the critical world of community-based conservation practices. Maegan’s growing role at GLOBIO is to help define our awareness and outreach approaches and programs, both nationally in the USA and internationally.
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Our Board of Directors
Chair of the Board – Douglas Gastich
Doug is a technology leader with over 20 years of experience building online education experiences. He believes deeply in the power of story, combined with novel interaction, to engage and inspire.
Board Treasurer –Todd Trzcinski
Todd is a native of Seattle with a degree from Whitman College and graduate studies in accounting at the University of Washington. He is a licensed CPA and served in several companies, both large corporations and startups, in particular focusing on the high tech service sector. In addition to the Pacific Northwest, he has lived and worked both in Europe and Rwanda and is an avid cyclist and traveler. Todd is currently a resident of New York City, and is consulting to US-based companies doing work in East Africa.
Board Member – Colburn Shindell
Colburn is a former secondary school educator and head of school who now focuses his teaching on adult literacy. An avid traveler and passionate conservationist, he spent 2017-2018 traveling through Africa learning first-hand the challenges facing wildlife. His experience fund-raising and leading non-profits complement his dedication to and love of wildlife. He and his family live in Reno, Nevada.
Our Team in the News
Lights, Cameras… Capacity Building
Rescued baby chimps have arrived at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary twice in the past while our GLOBIO cameras have been here. Twice we have had a chance to tell the world, through the video and photos we create, about the tragedy of poaching. Twice we have helped...
Post-COP26 Thoughts From A Different Perspective
It looks very different from here, watching the international circus act of world leaders at COP26 from the rainforest here in Sierra Leone made me think how far away all of “that” seems, and yet simultaneously I’m sitting in the heart of the one natural...
We’re Talking Apes in 2021
Did you know it’s really Survival of the Friendliest NOT the fittest? Unless your fitness comes from being friendly, I suppose. Did you know that apes migrate? Or that orangutans sing? How about non-human apes can’t swim because their bones are too heavy? Or which...
In the Shadows of a Tragic 2020
Has there been a more chaotic year? Perhaps not since being plunged into world war, notably the first war, with a pandemic in its wake, has a year been felt by more people in more places. Certainly, the Coronavirus pandemic takes top honors on most lists, dominating...
Earth Day Turns Fifty: A Gift of Trees
A low humid fog hangs over the river, shrouding the tops of the surrounding rainforest, an invisible bathing of microdroplets. This morning the river world is a monochrome grey-green, the sunrise still a half-hour away. Across from the tired wooden dock a pair...
Jane Goodall – Happy Birthday!
Birthdays are special times of celebration and unless it’s one of your first four or five they’re also an opportunity to reflect. A chance to cast your mind back to birthday punctuation marks, milestone birthdays, even tipping points. Famed primatologist, Jane...
Backyard Burning: Australia and a Planet on Fire
The devastating bushfires of Australia are reeking death and destruction across huge portions of the country; these fires are expected to burn for months, fueled by strong winds and extreme weather, leaving a staggering environmental toll. I launched my photographic...
Boomerang Places
Where is Gerry now? Now I find myself back in Zambia, at the end of the Copperbelt. A desolated piece of Earth robbed of virtually all life by the greed of a world desperate for copper. Copper for everything from electrical wires, and cooking pots, to electronics and...
Gerry Ellis Chimpanzees in Africa with LUMIX at Pro Photo Supply
Join us for a captivating talk as award-winning wildlife photographer and filmmaker Gerry Ellis talks about his equipment while in the field; why and how he films based on subject, destination and need. He will discuss how he uses his content online and for social...
Oregon Zoo Pub Talks kick off with Gerry Ellis and GLOBIO’s Apes Like Us project.
The Oregon Zoo Pub Talks series, presented by Pro Photo Supply, offers a chance to hear from conservation experts in a casual setting. Each month a conservation, animal care or wildlife science professional will share their knowledge and experience saving animals...