Tony Gerrans

Executive Director of African Operations, Humane Society International
South Africa
LLM ’19, CALS Ambassador 2021, 2021-2022

Tony was born in Johannesburg, lives now in Cape Town South Africa, and has worked in government, private business and the not-for-profit sector, primarily in the agricultural and animal welfare fields. As a Principal Planner in the Restitution Research Directorate of the South African Department of Land Affairs, he was part of the team researching and advising the post-apartheid Commission on Restitution of Land Rights on the legal validity of land restitution claims filed by victims of South Africa’s racially-based ‘separate development’ policy. He has also served as a trustee of the Humane Education Trust, the South African affiliate of Compassion in World Farming, and currently serves as legal advisor on the Cape Animal Welfare Forum. In July 2019 he completed a Masters in Animal Law, the Animal Law LLM, at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Tony is now working with Humane Society International as the Executive Director of African operations. In this role, he directs work across Africa in four program areas - working to protect wildlife, farmed animals, companion animals, and those used in testing. He has presented on animal law topics at the Cape Town Food Dialogues, the City of Cape Town Environmental Education Forum, the 2018 Animal Law Conference in Chicago, the 2019 China Animal Law Forum, the 2019 Cape Town Animal Rescuers Conference, the African Network for Animal Welfare 3rd Annual Animal Law Conference in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, the Advisory High Level Panel to the Minister of Forestry Fisheries and the Environment in South Africa, to Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of the Western Cape, and at the University of Cape Town as a panelist on a webinar reviewing Psychological and Neurological Research on Non-human Primates.

Tony is a 2021 CALS Ambassador, and for the next 12 months, will be working with fellow Animal Law LLM alumni Tess Vickery to research and present a seminar on Global Animal Law to fellow alumni and others interested in recent animal law developments around the world. He will also be presenting on behalf as of CALS at the 5th African Animal Welfare conference scheduled to be held in Accra, Ghana in November 2021.