How Jane Goodall has changed our way of seeing animals – and the world

Jane Goodall, who died at the age of 91, changed the world through the way she saw animals, especially chimpanzees.

In 1960, when she was 26 years old, she observed a chimpanzee whom she had appointed David Graybeard to fish the termites with a twig which he had stripped of leaves. “At that time,” she said later, “we thought humans, and only humans, used and manufactured tools. I was told at school that the best definition of a human being was the man the tool manufacturer – however I had just looked at a manufacturer of chimpanzee tools in action. ”

She reported her discovery to her mentor, the paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who sent a famous telegram in response: “Now we have to redefine” the tool “, redefine” man “or accept chimpanzees as humans”.

In the end, we chose the central option and wanted something else that we could do that other animals could not. But Goodall’s work was essential to undermine the vision of human exceptionalism and superiority that had prevailed not only among scientists but in society as a whole.

His work targeted the hypothesis of the French philosopher René Descartes who supported the exploitation of animals and the destruction of the environment for 400 years. Descartes said animals have no soul and can be considered as machines to be used as we will. Goodall has shown that chimpanzees had the intelligence and foresight to design and build tools, but it has also attributed emotions and personalities. Some were calm, like David Graybeard, other shy, curious or fiery.

In this, his work has echoed that of another scientist who changes the world with just as brilliant observation powers. In his book The expressions of emotions in humans and animalsCharles Darwin tried to explain the evolution of facial expressions, attributing them to emotional states: jealousy, rage, love, etc. But he did it in animals like humans, and the establishment rejected him.

The book was poorly considered at the time and neglected for more than 100 years. Goodall’s work in the 1960s was also initially rejected and even despised. It did not help that she were a young woman without a diploma. Darwin and Goodall were both motivated by an inextinguishable curiosity and patient power, intense observation – and these qualities underlie their success. (When New scientist Once, asked her what young scientists needed, she replied: “Patience, in huge heaps and buckets”.) We now understand that Darwin and Goodall were right: many animals have feelings, emotions and an interior life.

Goodall was chosen by Leakey to study the chimpanzees in Gombe in what is now Tanzania. Leakey was interested in understanding human evolution and deducing the behavior of the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, and he decided that the study of wild chimpanzees, which no one had ever done, would be a good way to go. He wanted someone who was impartial by established scientific thought, and he thought that a woman would make a more patient and empathetic field biologist. It is unlikely that a qualified biologist has made the breakthroughs that Goodall has made.

At first, his chimpanzee observations were distant overviews, through twins. But gradually, she won their acceptance. The first to trust her was the one she called David Graybeard, a male with white hair on her chin. (She would be later, would take a doctorate in Cambridge, reprimanded for having given the names of the animals and not the figures, but for her, it was natural to name them all.) She saw David Graybeard remove the leaves of a twig and then use it to fish the termites of a mound of termitis and reported its conclusions to Leakey. “David Graybeard and his tool used were the moment that changed everything,” she said later.

She was also the first scientist to make descriptions of the nuptial parade and rituals of coupling, their reproductive cycles, and the way the mothers present their babies to the troop – the experienced mothers, found the others calmly of the troop to see the baby, while the mothers for the first time hid the baby, causing the hooting and the Mayhem in the troop.

In the 1970s, the objective of his life began to change, going from the observation of chimpanzees to the champions. So started its second phase of change in the world. She created the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, which became a vast non -profit conservation organization, with offices in 25 countries. In 1986, she organized a conference for field biologists working on chimpanzees on sites across Africa, and he made the house in front of animals and forests on which they count. She also learned the problems facing people who live near the chimpanzee habitats.

In 1991, she started Roots & Shots, an organization to teach young people to conservation. It is active in more than 75 countries. Constantly on tour and speaking of conservation, it gave approximately 300 public appearances per year. In 2024, she visited each of the offices of the Jane Goodall Institute to speak to the media of conservation and animal rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwd7pkrzvu

Goodall died in California, in the middle of a speech tour. She wrote 32 pounds, including 15 for children. In his last, The Book of HopeShe wrote: “I realized that if we could not help people find a way to earn a living without destroying the environment, there was no way to try to save the chimpanzees.”

Goodall spoke of the influence of another of the most important figures of the 20th century, the ecologist and ecologist Rachel Carson. At the University of Cambridge in the 1960s, she said: “I read that Rachel Carson Silent spring And was inspired by his courage to fight against pharmaceutical societies, the government and scientists of the DDT environment. »»

Carson knew there was a long fight to come but never abandoned and will continue to inspire, she said. The same goes for Jane Goodall.