Jillian Miller

Jillian Miller has been director of the Gorilla Organization for more than 15 years. As founder of its award winning community based conservation programme, she has made a huge difference to the long-term survival prospects of the world's last remaining gorillas, while working tirelessly with local people to alleviate poverty and reduce pressure on the rapidly vanishing rainforest habitat.

Jillian's empathy and enthusiasm for Africa and its people, and her understanding that conservation needs to be owned and managed at a grass roots level, has ensured the Gorilla Organization's success. The organisation's field programme is one of the few conservation programmes of its kind that is run entirely by African conservationists.

The Gorilla Organization's biggest annual fundraising event, the Great Gorilla Run, takes place in London on 26 September, when over 600 crazy people in gorilla suits will run 7km around the City of London to raise money for the charity's projects in Africa. As the run's patron Bill Oddie points out, the Great Gorilla Run is without doubt "the most fun event for conservation going on anywhere in the world".

JILLIAN'S FAVOURITE SITES

Great Gorilla Run - This is a brand new event website for participants in the Great Gorilla Run, making the runners themselves the stars of the show and giving them a chance to  upload their often hilarious fundraising photos and videos. The site's homepage is an aggregator page designed to pull in the runners' own pictures and videos from Facebook. If you want to spend a few minutes having a good laugh and watching people get into the spirit of all things gorilla I would highly recommend visiting this site!

Mountain Gorilla Game - One of the first things a gorilla conservationist learns is to identify individual animals by their noseprints. Yes, gorillas have unique noseprints as well as unique fingerprints and many a researcher has spent numerous hours in the damp African forests sketching the complex pattern of lines and squiggles that make each gorilla stand out from the rest. This delightful webite is a simple online game where the player matches individual gorillas with their own noseprints. Cute but fun and definitely worth a visit if you have a moment to spare.

IRIN - The website for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and as such gives the inside story on many of the most pressing crises affecting people around the world. Have you ever felt that certain stories are underreported in the mainstream press? Do you prefer to read an in-depth analysis of how aid is reaching flood victims in Pakistan or how children with HIV are coping in Zimbabwe? Irin brings you the stories before they reach the headlines.

WildlifeDirect - This is a fascinating blogging site for conservationists working on the ground in Africa. Rangers, trackers and researchers working with Africa's endangered species report on the trials and tribulations of their conservation work. The site allows anybody, anywhere to play a direct and interactive role in the survival of some of the world's most precious species. If you are interested in gorillas, have a look at the gorilla blog (http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org) written by our field team in the Congo.

Bill Oddie - According to his website,  Bill Oddie is a birdwatcher, broadcaster, actor, television presenter, writer, song-writer, musician, conservationist and much more. He is also remarkably funny man and great supporter of British wildlife. This site is a must for birdwatchers and anyone concerned about the changing role of bird life in Britain's gardens. If you ever thought British birds were all small, brown and on the whole somewhat plain, you'll be charmed to read about blackcaps, tits, finches and robins alongside how to create a wildlife garden and how to squirrel proof your bird feeder.

The Gorilla Organization - Right from the start, we wanted our online presence to attract donations as well as being a source of useful information on gorillas. Over the years we've worked with cutting edge developers to stay ahead of the game and we now bring in more than a quarter of a million pounds a year online. Providing information online also saves us a fortune on paper and postage and helps keep the world a cleaner, greener place for everyone to enjoy.

21 September 2010