Dame Jane Goodall: A Life

"Only if we understand, can we care.  

Only if we care, we will help. Only if 

we help, we shall be saved." — Jane Goodall (Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe)

Young Jane Goodall and her stuffed monkey, Jubilee, courtesy of
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/goo1gal-1

A Child’s Dream

She closes her eyes, feels the breeze hit her face, and she is there--- Africa. The balmy midday air washes over her cheeks, caresses her closed eyelids, and ruffles her hair. She opens her pale blue eyes to the brilliance. Over the horizon, she can just make out the figure of a giraffe browsing in the acacias. Acacias, right? She had read that somewhere--- that giraffes eat the leaves of acacia trees. Had it been Tarzan or Dr. Doolittle? It mattered very little, for just then her wandering thoughts are cutoff by the echo of a lion’s call resounding over the plain. So this is Africa. It is pure magic, just as her 6 year-old imagination had created it to be. In the reality of 1942 England, the little girl who would one day become known as “Dame” Jane Goodall dreamed of traveling to this far-off land to study animals in the wild. Little did she know that she would one day realize this goal and far more.

More than fifty years later and an ocean away, in the foreign land of Texas, another little girl lives vicariously through Jane’s writing. Kathleen Hoffman has been reading her daughter, Mariah, In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall--- or Auntie Jane, as she had been affectionately dubbed in the Hoffman household, where she was a talked about at during dinner conversation like an old, familiar friend: 

Jane in Gombe during her first few years of research. 

“Did she really do all that Mama? She went out into the wild all by herself and just lived out there so she could watch them in their natural habitat? Oh, she was so brave, Mama. And she did all that when she was so young. Her twenties? I mean, Damian's nineteen, for goodness's sake. Mama, do you think I could ever do something like that, I mean, really? I could study, let’s see, hyenas. Or--- or I could go to Australia. They have koalas there. Ooh, ooh, or I could go to Borneo with the macaques.”

“Slow down there, Sweetie. Clearly I need curb your National Geographic consumption. Well, we’ll figure out where you are going first, and then you can go off to traipse across the world and save all the animals. Ok? Until then, you just sit tight and eat your macaroni and cheese.” 

Jane and Vanne Goodall in their camp in Gombe.  

“Fine, but you know, you can come, too. Jane’s mom went with her to Gombe and worked with her in camp. I read that somewhere, I think. We can just run away together, Mama, what do you say?” 

“Thank you for the offer, Sweetie, but right now, your macaroni’s getting cold. Eat.”                ......... 

That was the end of that conversation. However, there were many more to come, and as that little girl grew up and matured--- as I have grown and matured--- or at least learned to fake that I have grown and matured,  my appreciation for the road Jane Goodall has paved before me and the work she has done has grown as well.

Come to Life

For Jane Goodall has a remarkable story that needs to be told. Of course, like me, her love for animals started at a relatively young age. She snuck into chicken coops to see how hens really lay eggs when she was four or five. She carried around her bosom buddy, the stuffed chimpanzee Jubilee, everywhere she went.She daydreamed and imagined a life in the wild, preferring the outdoors to the stuffiness inside the classroom. 

 However, her physical adventures began after graduating high school l in 1952. As she could not not afford to go to university, resilient and flexible as she was, Goodall worked as a secretary instead,  for a time at Oxford University typing documents and then later for a London filmmaking company choosing music for documentaries. It was during this time that she made better acquaintance with Clo Mange, who would provide Jane with a chance to change her life forever. In May 1956, the winds of change felicitously blew Jane Goodall southward when she was invited to Clo's family's farm in Kenya. Her dream of going to Africa was within her grasp. So Jane jumped on the opportunity, quitting her London job, she moved back home and worked as a waitress to save enough money for boat fare.

In the wild: Jane watching the chimps from afar, before she had
earned the group's full trust. 

On April 2, 1957, at the age of 23, Jane took the long boat ride to Kenya. While there, somebody encouraged her to talk to anthropologist and palaeontologist Dr. Louis S. B. Leakey, who was in Kenya at the time doing research. With gumption and moxie, she telephoned him, thinking she would make an appointment to pick his brain and discuss animals at the very most.

However, Jane managed to impress Leakey with her knowledge of Africa and its wildlife to the extent that he hired her as his assistant. She traveled  with Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey, to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania on a fossil-hunting expedition. 

Lucem et pocula sacra.  From this place,
we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
The motto of Cambridge-- Goodal's alma mater.

Leakey, seeing her potential, convinced her of the importance of an education and how it would legitimize her work.Therefore, helped along by her patron, she was sent off to Cambridge University, and became theeighth person to be allowed study for a Ph.D without first obtaining a BA or B.Sc.

Upon her return to Africa in the summer of 1960, her sense of adventure and indomitable determination brought her to the shores of Lake Tanganyika, to observe the wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream. Other scientists did not believe that a 26-year-old woman could survive alone in the bush. She was a young woman working in a mature man’s field in the “savage” wilds of Africa. She was risking life and limb and scientific credibility carrying on the way she did, yet she stayed true to her course and braved the elements. Jane Goodall did more than survive.

Goodall makes a young friend.
"A handshake is a sign of candor." ~Kafka
"A Report to an Academy"

 Her work revolutionized the field of primatology. Through her years of observation, she had tested the methods of science, and made new discoveries. Where the field had promoted as little intervention as possible, she had learned to communicate and coexist with her troop.  She was criticized for stepping in and saving chimps from hunters or feeding the chimps who visited camp, but to this she replied with the simple answer that one cannot study chimps in their natural habitat if humans are hunting them, they are starving, or if they are dead. Even now, she defends herself with reserve and confidence when her fellow researchers question how biased or involved or subjective her data might be. She brought an emotional component to science that had never been truly advocated.  In her research, she was observant,  open-minded, and empathetic despite long-held beliefs in the scientific community, in particular, about what animals (particularly chimps) were like or what her role was to be in their lives. She tested conventions, not so interested in solving mysteries as preserving welfare. Moreover, without the strict background in biology or primatology of proper schooling, she described what she saw, not what she was supposed to see. There was an honesty and humility in her work that was unbound by desire for scientific acclaim or proving her knowledge. Rather, her relationship was built on a desire for understanding in a much more personal way. 

  For example, she developed special relationships with her troop. Instead of numbering the chimpanzees she observed, she gave them names such as Fifi and David Greybeard, and observed them to have unique and individual personalities, an unconventional idea at the time. She found that, “it isn’t only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow.”^[1] She also observed behaviors such as hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and even tickling, what we consider "human" actions.^[2] Goodall insists that these gestures are evidence of "the close, supportive, affectionate bonds that develop between family members and other individuals within a community."^[3] These findings suggest similarities between humans and chimpanzees exist in more than genes alone, but can be seen in emotion, intelligence, and family and social relationships. Over the years, she found chimpanzees engaging in activities that were once thought definitively human, such as tool-making, cooperative hunting and even warfare.Her work, the longest continuous field study of any living creature, has forced us to redefine our understanding of what it means to be human, and provided a vital insight into the evolution of our own species.

Goodall speaks to community leaders and 
members about conservation.

After all, as a primatologist, her most vocal subject are humans, themselves, and Goodall's love for man is amazing in itself. Her understanding of the world advocates love and understanding and coexistence for all species, especially those sharing space and resources. For example, while in Gombe, she brought a semblance of human dignity to the communities she encountered there. She never went in telling people what they had to do, but rather asked them what they thought they needed. She launched conservation  and humanitarian projects to local population. Along with her second husband, she helped bring resources such  as educational tools and medical supplies to the people of Gombe, believing improvement in their lives could only better the animals they encountered as well. These ideas have prospered and flourished in these communities. Today, along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, for example, villagers are planting trees where all the trees had disappeared. Women are taking their lives into their own hands, crafting items that can be sold at the market, and obtaining scholarship funding to attend school. Children are also being taught about the dire effects of habitat destruction, about conservation and sustainable living.

Moreover, she has documented her experiences in over thirty books, including a handful of short stories directed at children. Within their pages, not only does she teach ways of understanding and acceptance, and the need for action, but she also speaks of humanity. Her words are simple. Her words are kind. Their power is direct and unobstructed. In fact, it has always baffled me how inviting and personable she comes across in her speeches and books--- as one that would be happy to talk to anyone, to give anyone a chance to speak and be inspired, and she does not attack any institution outright, but opens a dialogue in which one is inspired to make ethical choices on their own terms.  

  

Goodlall gives a speech at UC: Santa Barbara.

Today, at age of seventy-six, Jane Goodall has taken up the banner of many different interrelated causes. She travels the world, campaigning for the humane treatment of all animals and empowering young people in their own efforts to preserve the environment for all living things. As an advocate and United Nations Messenger of Peace, she advocates learning to live in peace and harmony with the whole world--- those who are different from us as well as the natural world and other inhabitants of this world by getting together and working in each of our parts.

Kofi Annan names Goodall a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2004.

        She is such a talented 
woman. She has shown such patience and endurance throughout her life and career, and it would seem that she sees the big picture- how everything is so interconnected: people, environment, how we live, and our future. In 1977, taking her first steps away from science to advocay,  Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which supports the Gombe research, and she is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. With nineteen offices around the world, the JGI is widely recognized for innovative, community-centred conservation and development programs in Africa. Yet, she is accessable to anyone. Its global youth program, Roots & Shoots began in 1991 when a group of 16 local teenagers met with Goodall on her back porch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.s, and is now in hundreds of countries, inspiring thousands of youth. 

Goodall gets her hands dirty working in a zoo in Shanghai with a group of youth from Roots & Shoots.

.

            Now, as a speaker on tour, lecturing to students of all ages and through her organization Roots & Shoots, she has found a way to connect and inspire future generations. The focus is really progressive and forward-thinking.  traveling 300 days a year. She is dedicated beyond belief. I only hope I am as active as she at seventy-six!

A candid shot. 

Going Global

           Today, Goodall devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy on behalf of chimpanzees and the environment, travelling nearly 300 days a year.As former president of Advocates for Animals,she campaigns against the use of animals in medical research, zoos, farming and sport. She cries out for the need of ecological conservation. She sees children as the future of all of these gifts of the world. She urges her audiences to recognize their power and responsibility to effect positive change through consumer action, lifestyle change and activism.
           It is for her initiative, compassion, candor, courage,  self-discipline, flexibility, sense of humor, commitment, sense of justice, the longevity of her career and her endurance, and many other reasons that I love her. She is a scientist, a teacher, a leader, a friend, an ambassador, and an inspiration. She has something to teach us all, I think. Perhaps, I may not yet make it to Africa in my lifetime. Perhaps I will not study animals or make new discoveries about humankind or our relatives, but as she says, I can do my part. And like she, I can be positive and hopeful. That revolutionizing theorist I respected as a child has matured, herself, into a speaker and dynamic advocate for coexistence for my generation. I can promise you that she is sure to be a stand-by in any classroom of mine or to my own children. I guess, in closing, what I really admire is her capacity and ability to look at the world as a whole and work towards and articulate so humbly (yet so profoundly) the ideals of what is best in humanity (or perhaps all life). As she said herself, "We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love." [5]

[1]Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees". PBS. 1996. Retrieved 2011-2-28.
[2]Ibid
[3]Ibid
[4]Ibid
[5] Jane Goodall, Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating (Grand Central Publishing, 2006).

* All photos courtesy of: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/goo1gal-1. Please check out their site for even more videos and interviews.

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