N
ext week marks the 60th anniversary of Jane
Goodall’s arrival in what is now Tanzania’s
Gombe National Park to study wild chimpan-
zees.* Although her story is a familiar one to
many scientists, it has taken on a new impor-
tance in this era when climate change, racism,
and a rapidly spreading coronavirus ravage the
globe. It is a story of genuine scientific curiosity, de-
termination, and respect for nature and humanity—all
the things we desperately need now.
I talked with Dr. Goodall, virtually, where she was
spending her self-isolation in her childhood home in
Bournemouth, England.† It is the familiar place where
she spent her early years climb-
ing trees and observing her dog,
Rusty. She told me the well-known
story of how she met paleoan-
thropologist Louis Leakey and
convinced him that she should
study wild animals in Africa. She
was happy to tell the story one
more time. “Some people get it
wrong, even now,” she said.
Leakey famously said that
Goodall was a person of monu-
mental patience. “There’s defi-
nitely still lots of opportunity
for the old way of watching and
recording and being patient,”
she said. Goodall still insists that
some observational work be done
with handwritten note taking,
but she also embraces the use of
technology. “I believe that you cannot do everything
digitally,” she said. “We did graduate to using [tape]
recorders, which of course made the transcription ex-
tremely laborious because when you are recording,
you have caught far more than you could write.” The
important thing to Goodall was to get close and study
the personalities and interactions among chimpanzee
family members. She has been doing it for 60 years,
saying “it yielded so much richness.”
The science that started in Gombe back then has
evolved, changing and developing as it grows. In partner-
ship with the Jane Goodall Institute (founded in 1977),
Crickette Sanz, professor of Anthropology at Washington
University in St. Louis, has continued to build our under-
standing of chimpanzee tool use. Sanz told me that when
her work began in the Republic of the Congo, Goodall
traveled several days by plane, truck, and boat, and 20
km on foot to visit the research site and show her sup-port. She says that “the world is yearning for [Goodall’s]
ideals of hope, compassion, and change.”
And that is where Goodall devotes most of her time
now. Although the science is still important—over
300 research papers have now emerged from groups
working in Gombe—Goodall lights up when she talks
about her new efforts to build respect and hope for
the future of humanity and the natural world. The
Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Educa-
tion (TACARE) program seeks to use satellite imaging,
mobile, and other technologies to ensure that local
communities develop their own land-use management
solutions and are included as partners in the overall
scientific and conservation efforts
conducted there.
Another program she devotes
most of her time to now, Roots &
Shoots, reflects her faith in young
people and the future. She still has
many concerns about the world.
“How do we move into a new
green economy?” she wonders.
“How do we alleviate poverty so
people can make the right choices
and stop destroying the environ-
ment? How do we realize that put-
ting the short-term economic gain
over and above protection of na-
ture is going to be the end of our
species as well as the end of most
life as we know it?”
In an effort to answer these
questions, she uses her platform,
and her story, to inspire the younger generation, just
as she has also inspired the established scientists of to-
day. To Goodall, “every individual makes a difference,”
says Sanz, who sees Goodall as “a steward for nature,
with equal concern for the smallest creatures to the
largest remaining tracts of intact forest, and gifted in
sharing all of its wonders. Through her global pres-
ence, she’s also emphasized the connectedness of all
people and our responsibility to each other. From what
I have witnessed, both her compassion and her impact
are truly limitless.”
And so is Goodall’s empathy. “When you’re empa-
thetic,” she says, “you’re watching something you don’t
understand and you get that ‘aha’ moment because
you understand them, and then you have a platform as
a scientist to find out if your ‘aha’ moment is actually
correct. Without the empathy you’d never get there.”
–H. Holden ThorpMonumental patience
H. Holden Thorp
Editor-in-Chief,
Science journals.
[email protected];
@hholdenthorp10.1126/science.abd*See janegoodall.org/gombe60 and https://arcg.is/H04Db.
†See more of the conversation at https://blogs.sciencemag.org/editors-blog/.
PHOTO: CAMERON DAVIDSON
SCIENCE sciencemag.org 10 JULY 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6500 121“...Goodall’s...
is a story of
genuine scientific
curiosity,
determination, and
respect for nature
and humanity...”