Interview with Jane Goodall--Passion of a Celebrated Animal Activist
10/29/99
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Title: Interview/Jane Goodall
The passion of a celebrated animal activist
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 29, 1999
Byline: M.S. Mason
Arts and television writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The most celebrated primatologist in the world is Jane Goodall, who
spent 40 years in the bush in Tanzania studying chimps.
Her scholarly book, "The Chimpanzees of Gombe," (see the Monitor's
review) is seminal. But she is best known for her activism through
lectures, films, Roots and Shoots (her environmental youth clubs
around the world), and her tireless efforts to promote greater
respect for wild animals.
In her new biography, "Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey," and in
the PBS documentary "Reason for Hope" (airing on PBS through Nov. 8,
check local listings), Ms. Goodall tells about her faith in God, her
Congregationalist upbringing, and her certainty that humankind is
evolving toward greater goodness.
"I think of England a hundred years ago and how children were
barefoot in the snow, women and children were down in the mines, they
were still dealing in slaves," she said in a recent interview.
"The poverty, the slums were ghastly. It's changed. There are still
problems, but at least for every problem, there's a great group of
people lobbying to put it right."
"I have this unshakable belief that human beings are moving away from
cruelty and destruction," she says.
Her belief that the human spirit is innately good, strong, and godly
is underscored in the film in several ways. That faith extends to and
encourages all the young people she meets around the world.
"My zeal is entirely directed toward helping young people to realize
their potential," she says. "And toward getting people to have more
respect for animals. I'm trying to share my conviction that we have
to think about animals in a different way. It's very interesting that
there's all this movement about giving animals some kind of legal
status. That's picking up. There's change afoot!"
Goodall says one of the most important things she has to offer young
people is hope. Many people are apathetic because they think one
individual can do nothing to help the environment, she says.
Every individual does matter, she says, and individuals together can
make a difference. If a million of us all do what we are supposed to
do, and don't do the things we shouldn't, that makes a difference.
She's talking about modest changes people can make - recycling glass
and aluminum, and buying cosmetics and household products not tested
on animals - as well as grander schemes.
"Ethical choices," she calls them. "Don't leave it all up to
politicians and scientists," she says. "Everything is driven by money
in a consumer society...." Two of the gravest problems facing wild
animals in Africa are the disappearance of habitat (logging companies
in Africa are good about replacing the trees they cut down, but
indifferent to the animals living in the forests) and the
indiscriminate hunting of wild creatures for meat.
The solution, she says reluctantly, may be in game farms. But it is
primarily in education. Goodall now spends most of her time traveling
around the world educating people about wild animals.
Though she makes the sacrifice gladly, it is in the wilds of Gombe
that she is most at peace. She has spent many years in relative
isolation - alone with the chimps and the jungle.
"I dreamt of it since early childhood, and when I first got there it
was just like going home," she says. "To me, it wasn't ever strange.
When I was small, I would sit alone in the garden for hours,
apparently, just watching insects and things."
The most formative book she read as a child was "The Story of Doctor
Dolittle," by Hugh Lofting. Dr. Dolittle talked to animals (and it is
most amusing to hear Goodall say hello in "Chimpanzee").
All those hours in the garden as a child observing nature were
Goodall's training ground. She didn't go to college, but at 25 she
met anthropologist Louis Leakey, who sent her to Gombe. She later
earned her doctorate at Cambridge University.
"Louis wanted women [for primate ethology] because he thought they
made better observers," she says. "He thought they were more patient,
which may be true. He thought they'd be less threatening to the
primates than men, macho men, which is true."
And, she adds, Dr. Leakey felt that women were better able to
communicate with nonverbal animals because of their long experience
over the centuries with little children and perceiving what they need
without words.
Her expertise is recognized everywhere. She has influenced the way
zoos keep their animals.
"The best zoos are the ones that don't have too many different
species, so they can really go to town and give the species they do
have the best possible environment - social and physical," she says.
"For chimps, the best situation is Gombe, or any other place that
fully protects them - where they're safe."