Mr. Peter Clay

Senior Advisor

Biographical Sketch

Peter Clay, senior advisor to the Gishwati Area Conservation Program (GACP), completed his undergraduate degree in biology at Earlham College in 1972. Following this he spent 10 months working for the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, a special zoo established for endangered species and located on the island of Jersey in the English Channel.  Here is where he first began working with primates, including lemurs and both gorillas and orangutans.  Soon afterwards, Peter began a long career working with primates at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, with a focus on great apes.

In 1985, Peter took a leave of absence to spend several months studying mountain gorillas and working with David Watts and Dian Fossey at the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda.  This experience served to guide much of his subsequent professional journey.  Leaving Lincoln Park Zoo in 1992, he spent one full year back in Rwanda during the civil war, assisting with management and oversight of the Karisoke Research Center during a very challenging time.  He returned to Rwanda again in 1995 after the war was over to help the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund re-establish important research and conservation programs focused on saving the mountain gorillas.  The Republic of Congo became his home during 1997.  He completed a case study of a World Bank funded community-based conservation program within the Conkouati Faunal Reserve while assisting with a groundbreaking re-introduction program for rescued and rehabilitated chimpanzees.  In the process, Peter completed a master's degree in International and Intercultural Management at the School for International Training in Vermont.

Following this, Peter spent four years working with inner city youth and teachers as an Education Coordinator for Lincoln Park Zoo’s Education Department.  During this time, he attended an International Biodiversity Education Leadership Institute co-sponsored by World Wildlife Fund and Disney’s Animal Kingdom and joined a team that presented a paper on museum programs for youth at the Visitor Studies Association’s annual conference.

In 2004, Peter came to Iowa to help establish Great Ape Trust and care for orangutans, marking a return after many years to working directly with great apes in a captive setting.  The next six months involved preparing for the arrival of the Trust’s orangutans, including participating in building design and, once the building was populated, assisting with the respectful, collaborative research that remains the hallmark of Great Ape Trust’s research programs.  With other members of the orangutan care team, he co-authored a paper on the exceptional care provided for Allie, an orangutan with a unique medical history and special needs.

After an absence of more than 12 years, Peter traveled once again to Rwanda in the fall of 2007, joining Great Ape Trust Director of Conservation Dr. Benjamin Beck, Trust Founder Ted Townsend and Trust Director of Communications Al Setka in beginning the initiative which has become the Gishwati Area Conservation Program (GACP).  Following GACP support trips to Rwanda in 2008 and 2009, in 2010 he was re-assigned to the position of Senior Advisor to GACP, working to support our Rwanda program staff and the Director of Conservation.  His work focuses on community engagement and building durable relationships with the local communities surrounding the Gishwati forest as the program of forest protection and restoration continues side by side with efforts to bring economic and social benefits to the people living around Gishwati.