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Jane Goodall understands better than most the impact humans have had on the planet. The world, the primatologist says, isn’t what it used to be. Having witnessed so much environmental deterioration during her lifetime, today Goodall is as much an activist as a scientist. She warns tirelessly of accelerating environmental devastation, vanishing biodiversity, and rapidly intensifying climate change. “When I began, there weren’t such problems,” she says.
At 26, Goodall ventured into the Tanzanian rainforests—where the now-famous Gombe National Park was established a few years later—to study chimpanzees. Her years of meticulous observation deepened our understanding of these animals and their similarities to us. Among her most significant discoveries was that chimpanzees can make and use simple tools, a trait previously thought unique to humans. Goodall also revealed the primates’ rich social networks.
Gombe, situated on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was not large even then—at 35 square kilometers, it is one of Tanzania’s smallest parks. However, it was surrounded by dense forest, home to countless wildlife species. Over the decades, deforestation has reduced the forest, and local wildlife has fallen prey to poachers.
“Gombe has become an isolated forest with bare hills all around,” says Goodall. Chimpanzee living conditions have deteriorated not only there but across Africa. There were about a million chimps in the early 20th century; today’s estimates range from 170,000 to 300,000. Countless other animals and regions face similar threats.
The planet’s biodiversity has also rapidly deteriorated over the past few decades, and according to the UN, up to a million species are at risk of extinction, mainly due to their wild habitats being changed to farmland. On top of this, human-induced climate change reduces the living space for many species. The window of time available to halt this trend and to protect ecosystems that both animals and humans rely on is running out, Goodall argues. “I don’t know how big a window it is. The important thing is we’ve got to get together and take action now.”
Addressing both biodiversity loss in specific regions and global climate change is imperative, Goodall stresses. Everything is connected, she says. “You have to do them together—biodiversity loss and climate change.” Focusing solely on climate change could still lead to the loss of species like chimpanzees, she says. “The one advantage of the number of people on the planet, which is too many, is that there are enough people to tackle every single problem. Every one of us makes an impact on the planet every single day. And unless we’re very poor or very young, we can choose what sort of impact we make. Like what do we buy? How was it made? Did it harm the environment? Was it cruel to animals? Is it cheap because of unfair wages?”
The scientist-activist doesn’t merely traverse the globe advocating for conservation. Through her organizations, such as the Jane Goodall Institute, she provides tangible support and guidance, particularly in her adopted home of Gombe, which she still visits twice a year.
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While immersed in fieldwork earlier in life, Goodall recognized that lifting people out of poverty was integral to preserving biodiversity in the national park. Hence, she initiated the Tacare program, which offers microloans to kick-start sustainable businesses, scholarships for girls previously deprived of secondary education, and family-planning counseling. Additionally, farmers receive advice on chemical-free, sustainable farming practices, such as permaculture.
“I realized the reason the trees were cut down was because people were struggling to survive,” reflects the scientist. “Their families were growing, and they couldn’t afford to buy food from elsewhere. Their own farmland was infertile with overuse. And so they were cutting down the trees, either to make land, to grow food, or to make money from charcoal or timber.”
It’s only when individuals secure their own livelihoods that they’re inclined to confront the repercussions of their actions and address their environmental impact. This shift in behavior is evident in villages surrounding the national park, where new technologies aid locals. With a simple mobile phone app, villagers can report illegal tree felling by capturing images of fallen trunks. This initiative, initially launched in 12 Gombe villages, now operates in 104 villages across Tanzania and six other African nations.
By stopping deforestation, chimpanzees are no longer forced to live in a confined territory cut off from the outside world. They have created corridors through which they can move freely and interact with other groups, promoting genetic exchange. Today, Gombe’s chimpanzees are connected to their counterparts in neighboring Burundi and are more likely to survive.
A bit further north, in Uganda, Goodall tells us, there is a farmer involved in the Jane Goodall program. His primary livelihood comes from growing sugarcane. However, his farming activities have attracted the attention of chimpanzees, whose habitat and food sources are diminished by agriculture. In response, he decided to allocate a portion of his land near the rainforest surrounding his farm to cultivate crops favored by the chimpanzees. This way, the chimpanzees would have less incentive to raid his sugarcane fields.
“The locals now grasp that conservation benefits both wildlife and their own future,” says the primatologist. Goodall is a staunch believer in the transformative power of grassroots efforts to safeguard our planet’s biodiversity and secure a sustainable future for all.
She shares a cascade of uplifting examples of environmental stewardship. With them, one could paint a picture of human progress in preserving nature. Yet Goodall tempers this optimism with a sobering reality check. “Take the United States, for example. Biden put back lots of regulations to protect wildlife. Trump has boasted that if he gets back in, he will open up the national parks to logging and mining. I mean, he’s actually boasting about it,” she says.
In Africa, China is increasingly active, investing in rapid road-building, dams, and mineral extraction at the expense of the environment and space for wildlife.
“Funnily enough, within China, they’re ahead in solar power development. They’re now very passionate about protecting their own environment,” says Goodall. “We can always blame China, but what they’re doing is looking after their own environment and getting all the materials they need by harming other environments. But that’s what colonial powers did, and that’s what big business is still doing. America gets its raw materials by going and mining in other countries, the developing countries.”
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Nor do all the leaders of African countries themselves often have sustainability in mind. In the more than six decades that Jane Goodall has been going to Tanzania, she has seen six presidents. “The previous president [John Magufuli, in office 2015 to 2021, nicknamed Bulldozer] was a nightmare,” she complains. Most important to him, Goodall says, was the construction of roads and a dam and hydroelectric project on the Rufiji River, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A wave of resentment rose against the plan, but the government warned that anyone opposing the project would go to jail.
As Goodall looks around the world, she watches with concern as the political pendulum swings towards the far right, which she says means environmental issues are likely to be sidelined. She disagrees with the notion that unlimited economic development can be achieved on a planet with limited natural resources and a growing population, not only of humans, but also of farmed animals. “It doesn’t make sense, it’s not sustainable,” she says.
On the other hand, she doesn’t entirely condemn tourism, a big part of the global economy. To a limited extent, and if well managed, she says, it brings livelihoods to local people and money to national budgets.
Her fascination with chimpanzee research persists, and she closely monitors the next generation of scientists advancing her pioneering work. “I learned just the other day something I never knew before,” she says. In Senegal, amid a parched environment, chimpanzees demonstrate a remarkable adaptation: They frequent watering holes, ingeniously filtering muddy water through hollowed-out holes in roots and vegetation.
“They’ve got a film of it, which I saw last week. I’ve never seen it before. But then think of what we’re learning about other animals. The octopus, so intelligent. Crows, who can solve problems faster than children. You know—there’s so much like that.”
This interview was originally published by WIRED Czech Republic and Slovakia.
