Climate Corner: Celebrating Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall, a famed ethologist and conservationist, redefined what it means to be human throughout her life. She set the standard for how behavioral studies are conducted, most famously through her work with wild chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London, England. As a child, she loved animals and nature, and she was especially inspired by the book Tarzan of the Apes. Goodall did not attend university immediately after finishing school; she worked as a secretary and saved money to travel to Africa. She traveled to Kenya in 1957, where she met Dr. Louis Leakey, a famous paleoanthropologist, who hired her as an assistant and later helped her begin her studies of wild chimpanzees.

As her career progressed, Goodall made groundbreaking discoveries about the complex social behaviors and emotions that chimpanzees exhibit. In 1965, Goodall earned a PhD in Ethology from Cambridge University. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute and launched the Roots & Shoots program in 1991 to engage young people in environmental and humanitarian work. She was named a UN Messenger of Peace in 2002 and received numerous awards, including the Templeton Prize, the Kyoto Prize, and the designation of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Goodall also wrote several books, including In the Shadow of Man (1971), Reason for Hope (1999), and The Book of Hope (2021, with Douglas Abrams). Goodall was a very accomplished woman. Her feats and achievements symbolize peace between humans and nature.

Just a few weeks ago, in her ‘Famous Last Words’, a film produced by Netflix, Goodall claimed to viewers, “If we don’t have hope, we are doomed.” She viewed herself as a woman of hope. Jane continued: “So even if this is the end of humanity as we know it, let’s let the children know that there is hope if they get together and even if it is impossible for anybody it is better to go on fighting till the end than to say ‘okay’”. In celebration of Goodall’s life and accomplishments, global citizens are urged to view each step towards repairing the Earth as vitally important.