Dr. Jane Goodall Shares Her Message of Hope

Death will be a terrible adventure for pioneering primatologist Jane Goodall, who celebrated her 90th birthday in April. “I am absolutely certain that death is not the end, but God knows what happens after that,” she says, distinguishing between her own belief and science. “Either there is nothing or there is something. Can you imagine a greater adventure than to find out what that is?”

Not that the woman who forever changed our understanding of chimpanzees is slowing down or becoming morbid. On the contrary, Jane is currently traveling the world nonstop, on an odyssey that would exhaust most ordinary mortals half her age.

In 2024 alone, her inspiring “Reasons for Hope” tour will stop in more than 25 countries, including Australia in May and June. On average, the respected scientist and environmental activist spends about 300 days a year on the road, crusading to save our planet – and its endangered wildlife – before it’s too late.

“I think I was put into this world with a mission, so I have to keep going,” she says, as lively as a sea breeze in the seaside resort of Bournemouth, which she still calls home, even though she rarely goes there. “But this year is the worst of my life. It’s my 90th birthday, so everyone wants a piece of me.”

I wish her a happy birthday and the thanks are a little gloomy. Dr Jane Goodall may be a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a United Nations Messenger of Peace, but today she is a little fed up with all the fuss.

“It’s not a happy thing at all, actually, because it’s a constant phenomenon,” she explains. “Everyone wants to celebrate my birthday with galas and all sorts of events and things where I have to wear fancy clothes. You know, I don’t like that kind of thing. I think I’ve eaten 14 cakes already.”

“I was in New York on my birthday and it was terrible. It started with a talk show, then a long interview, then a long lunch, then another interview, then a fundraising gala in the evening. It’s a pretty typical day.

“No wonder my voice is failing me,” she coughs, recovering from bronchitis. Even the tireless Jane is a little tired, happy to have spent a short stay at her late grandmother’s Bournemouth home, where she grew up surrounded by free-roaming animals.

Maybe a glass of whiskey would help? “Yes, you’re quite right and I’m getting close… wait a second while I get the bottle.” She laughed as she poured herself a “medicinal” drink. “That’ll do! I should have had it ready, but I didn’t. I should be fine now.”

Jane has no choice but to work hard. Time is running out. Chimpanzees are endangered. Her message is all the more urgent as global warming sets in and threatens life itself.

“We are in a dark period socially, politically and environmentally,” she says. “We have a window of time to change the course of this planet, but it is closing fast. Humanity is at the entrance of a very long dark tunnel, and at the end of it, there is a little star: it is hope.”

“We need to come together and roll up our sleeves to overcome and crawl under all the obstacles that stand in our way, like climate change and biodiversity loss. And one of them is very important: poverty. We need to reduce poverty because really poor people destroy the environment to survive.

“My job is to give people enough hope to keep fighting, to make them understand that each and every one of us has an impact every day. Without hope, we become apathetic and give up. And if everyone loses hope, we are doomed.”

Still, she has reason to be optimistic. The Jane Goodall Institute, founded in 1991 to protect her beloved chimpanzees and their habitat, is active around the world, and its Roots & Shoots youth program now has local chapters in more than 60 countries, including Australia.

“Young people today, wherever I am, are so excited and motivated,” she enthuses. “We listen to them and encourage them to take action in their communities. It gives us a reason to hope.”

In all these areas – and many others – Jane was a pioneer, particularly for women seeking careers in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. “It’s great because when I was growing up, there were no women scientists. Only very, very strange women, like Madame Curie, you know.”

From the beginning, Dr. Jane Goodall was drawn to animals and Africa. Her father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee, which she still takes everywhere. Her fate was sealed. As a little girl, Jane carried earthworms to bed with her and got lost in the family chicken coop at the age of four, trying to figure out where the eggs came from.

The first book she remembers reading was The Story of Doctor Dolittleabout a country GP who could talk to animals. Another fictional jungle hero, Tarzan, upset her because he “married the wrong Jane!”

When she finally set sail for Africa in 1957, with money saved from working as a waitress, she was not a scientist and had no qualifications other than an inquisitive mind. She was simply a “naive” young woman chasing a dream on her first trip abroad.

Luckily, she met and impressed paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey who, although married, fell in love with his beautiful protégée. Politely but firmly rebuffed, he nevertheless offered her the chance to study chimpanzees in the wild as no one had done before.

“It was destiny,” smiles Jane, who became fascinated by the complex social and family lives of primates in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park. There she made a remarkable discovery that completely overturned the conventional wisdom that humans were the only creatures capable of making and using tools.

Deep in the rainforest, she observed a large male chimpanzee, nicknamed David Greybeard, foraging for food. To her surprise, she saw him skin and shape a stick, then deliberately use it to extract tasty insects from a termite mound. It was a defining moment that redefined our understanding of the animal kingdom and its capabilities.

This is why Jane, who is currently studying her fifth generation of chimpanzees in Gombe, believes they are so important and must be saved. The mirror they hold up to us is both strange and invaluable.

“They are our closest living relatives,” she says passionately. “They share 98.8 percent of our DNA, so they behave like us in many ways. They hold hands, kiss, develop lasting mother-child bonds and other friendships.”

“Like us, they have a dark and brutal side. Males fight for dominance and neighboring communities engage in primitive warfare. But they also show love, compassion and true altruism. Even an adult male will adopt a child who has lost its mother.”

Goodall went on to earn a PhD in ethology at Cambridge University, but was criticized “rather unpleasantly” by her (mostly male) scientific peers for giving her chimpanzee subjects names, rather than numbers. “I was told I couldn’t empathize with animals. But they are sentient and clearly have feelings, as anyone who has ever had a pet dog knows. That’s when I distanced myself from science, when it stopped connecting the head and the heart.”

Today, she considers herself more of an activist than a scientist, fighting for animal conservation and environmental causes. She persuaded a U.S. oil company to help build a chimpanzee sanctuary in the Republic of Congo. She lobbied the U.S. National Institutes of Health to end medical research on chimpanzees, which it did in 2015.

She also became a vegetarian, then a vegan, after reading Animal Liberation by Australian philosopher Peter Singer in the 1970s. “Until then, I didn’t know about factory farming and it made me feel sick.”

Jane is very close to her family. Her first marriage, to Dutch wildlife photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick, ended in divorce but produced her only child, Hugo “Grub” Eric Louis van Lawick, who builds houses in Africa and Latin America. Her three beloved grandchildren work alongside Jane on many projects.

Sadly, her happy second marriage to Derek Bryceson, the Tanzanian National Parks Director, ended prematurely when he died of cancer, leaving her a widow at the age of 46. Devastated by the loss, she says: “I came to England to grieve, then returned to Tanzania, where I spent days alone in the forest. In nature, the grief dissipated. Now I like to think about life after death. Exploring the unknown will be my next great adventure.”

Meanwhile, Jane and her sister Judy have a drink every night, wherever they are, in honor of their mother and other absent friends.

“It’s a ritual,” she explains. “Mom and I used to have a little drink together at home. As I traveled more, it became a way for us to feel connected at our respective 7 p.m. times. Now, Judy and I toast her in the clouds. Of course, it’s for medicinal purposes. We have fun imagining Mom among beautiful angels and music…

“The funny thing is that many people around the world have heard about our tradition and wanted to raise a glass to the cloud community. They often ask if there is room up there for their friends and loved ones. I always tell them, ‘Sure!’ It’s kind of funny, but you always find a way out, right? I can still hear my mother’s voice, who died over 20 years ago.”

Dr. Jane Goodall as a child with her stuffed chimpanzee

One day, who knows, they may be reunited. Jane is eager to find out when she embarks on her final journey. The Goodall legacy will surely live on, whatever the truth—or not—of life after death.

Dr. Jane Goodall’s Dream, a spectacular, immersive experience celebrating her work, is set to open in Tanzania on World Chimpanzee Day, July 14. “I can’t quite imagine it yet, but it involves former Walt Disney Imagineers and African artisans and it will be magical.”

Less tangibly, she is proud of a dual heritage.

“Starting Roots & Shoots, giving hope to millions of children, is one thing,” she muses, summarizing her long-standing accomplishments. “The second thing is that we owe our success to the chimpanzees, who helped scientists understand that we are part of the wonderful animal kingdom, not separate from it.”

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