Changing the World with Dr. Jane Goodall
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Welcome to Stories of Impact. I'm your host, writer Tavia Gilbert, and along with journalist Richard Sergei, every first and third Tuesday of the month, we share conversations about the art and science of human flourishing. In today's episode, we return to one of our favorite topics. We hope it's one of yours too, diverse intelligences. And we'll hear from leader and luminary Dr. Jane Goodall.

What a pleasure to have Dr. Goodall join the Stories of Impact community after decades of significant contributions to not only the scientific world, but to, arguably, the entire planet.

When 26-year-old British-born Jane Goodall began field studies of primates in Tanzania in July 1960, she was the first researcher to observe chimpanzees in the wild, and she remains one of the world's foremost experts on chimpanzees.

When she was starting out as a young female scientist, pursuing a revolutionary approach in her work, in order to carve out a career, Goodall had to combat not only deep misogyny, but ironclad beliefs long held in the scientific community about humanity's place in the world.

But her rigorous and creative approach quickly gained the attention of the National Geographic Society, which awarded her first grant and which has passionately championed her work in the decades since.

Despite never getting a college degree, Dr. Goodall was accepted at Cambridge University, earned her Ph.D. in ethology in 1966, and spent decades in the Gombe Stream National Park studying chimpanzee communities, eventually becoming the only human to ever be accepted into a chimpanzee society.

Today, at the age of 90, Dr. Goodall is a legendary conservationist, galvanizing educator, UN messenger of peace, and an inspiring writer and public speaker.

Her curiosity, empathy, wisdom, protective heart, and unshakable hope reflect the best of humanity. And even though today's conversation is short, you'll hear all of those exemplary characteristics embodied in her voice and story. Dr. Goodall begins at the beginning. When I first went to Cambridge University in 1961, it was literally, I was told, it was a shop line.

And we were on one side of the line and all the other animals were on the other. I mean, nobody had studied wild chimpanzees, nobody. So everything was new. When I got to Cambridge University, I was told I'd done everything wrong.

I was told that I couldn't talk about chimpanzees having personalities, minds or emotions because those were unique to us. I was told that I couldn't have empathy with my subjects because then I couldn't be a good scientist because scientists were objective

And if you were empathetic, you couldn't be objective, which I knew from my childhood teacher, my dog, was absolute rubbish. I didn't confront the professors. That's not my way. I just went on quietly writing about what I saw, my observations.

And then the National Geographic, who was supporting me, sent a filmmaker, Hugo van Leeuwen, to document in film the behavior that I was talking about. So that film substantiated what I was saying. You know, there were scientists who said, well, why should we believe her? She's not been to college. Why should we believe this young woman? But then when the film came out,

Gradually, things began to change, and gradually, scientific attitude changed. Dr. Goodall's empathetic approach, which included naming the chimpanzees, was at odds with her colleagues' anthropocentric beliefs. But even though her careful observation and groundbreaking findings helped expand science that radically challenged human supremacy and assumed limitations of animal cognition, Dr. Goodall

Dr. Goodall doesn't take the credit. It became gradually clear that the chimpanzee, not only so like us in behavior, kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting one another, males competing, swaggering, you know, they can be dark, have a dark side, they can be brutal, kind of primitive, war of a territory, but they can also be loving and altruistic. And so this idea

really opened the door so that scientists realized we were not so unique after all. And once that door was open, that opened it up to exploring the minds and the emotions of other animals.

And as I say now, we've got right down to the bees and octopuses and things like that. So it was the chimpanzees that changed scientific attitude. And I was just their mouthpiece. How has technology impacted Dr. Goodall's work? Does technology now rule the scientific process?

Well, of course, it depends on what you're researching as to which aspects of the new technology are important. You know, we're now using a lot of camera traps. We're putting up these little instruments that collect sounds from around the forest.

GIS, GPS, terribly important, collecting samples like urine and feces to do DNA testing to find out about disease. All of these new technologies are really important.

They must be done in conjunction with observation because there's nothing to beat observation. Even in her own scientific home, Gombe National Park, where she began her work, Dr. Goodall has had to advocate for continued close observational study rather than ceding ground to machines. I've had to fight at Gombe because...

There was a big effort to put everything, you know, like digital.

out in the field, just press buttons. But it doesn't work that way because if you do that, you miss all the little nuances of behavior which help you understand the personality of the chimpanzees. And all these observations which suddenly say, "Oh, that is why this happens." So observation is unbelievably important and not just the casual observation but

Dieter, like, I observed the chimps and made notes every 30 seconds. Today, many people know Dr. Goodall as much for her unshakable hope in the future as for her work as a primatologist. So much of her time is spent leading conversations about climate change and conservation. What is at the root of her refusal to give up hope that humanity can solve the massive climate problems we have ourselves created?

Does she think we're running out of time? Well, I believe we've got a window of time. It is closing. I don't know how big it is. And, you know, the big problem today is more and more and more people are losing hope because we're surrounded by the doom and gloom in the media. So what's the point? Suicide rates are going up as people get into this eco-depression.

People are getting angry and there's violence and conflict spreading around the world. But we do have this little window of time. So the way that I'm approaching this is it's desperately important to share stories of hope. Dr. Goodall shares a story that gives her hope. I was talking to a group of CEOs of big international companies

And one of them said, "Jane, I've been really, really working for the last eight years to get my operations more ethical in the countries where we source our goods, in the supply chains, the wages we pay people.

the way we treat people in the offices around the world and try to make them environmentally sustainable, and the way we treat our customers for three reasons. One, I see the writing on the wall, we're using up natural resources too fast in many places for nature to restore them.

In some places, they will never be restored because those resources are finite. Second, consumer pressure. People are beginning to ask questions. How was this product made? Did it harm the environment? Is it cheap because of unfair wages or slave labor? Was it cruel to animals? Then they're not buying it.

And that's forcing business to change the way it operates. But he said, what tipped the balance for me was my little girl of 10. And she came back from school one day and she said, Daddy, they're telling me that what you're doing is hurting the planet. That's not true, is it, Daddy? Because it's my planet.

People in the West have been slow to recognize the threat of climate change. And Dr. Goodall knows it's futile to wait for everyone to catch up. Climate change is hitting the wealthy nations. It's hitting New York and London and Amsterdam. And so I think that's helping more people to understand, hey, we really are up against a major problem. And

I know some of them are saying, well, we admit that there's climate change, but it's nothing to do with us. There's so many scientific facts that prove it is up to us, the speed of change, the speed of heating up. And if they don't believe it, I don't bother to try and change their minds. It's not worth it if they're not going to listen because they've made up their minds.

Instead of trying to change minds, Dr. Goodall has made it her personal mission to counter despair and highlight progress. Yes, we're in dark times, but there are so many amazing people doing amazing things. Animals brought back from the brink of extinction. Areas that we totally destroyed. Given time, nature will come back.

And so my mission now in life is to give people hope, to encourage them,

to share stories of hope. Young people are centered in Dr. Goodall's vision for who should have a primary role in creating a better future. In 1991, she founded Roots & Shoots, designed to bring together youth from preschool to university age to work on environmental, conservation, and humanitarian issues. And Roots & Shoots is now established in 70 countries.

Dr. Goodall learned from the very first Roots and Shoots group in the Democratic Republic of Congo the power children have to spark extraordinary change. They decided for their first project, these were kids of 10 to 14, they were going to put trees back on a hill which they were told was once a sacred hill. And now the trees were gone. Well, it was too ambitious, but, you know, kids are kids.

and their mentor didn't want to discourage them and dampen their enthusiasm. So he went to a forester friend of his and got little saplings. And then in Eastern DRC, where our office is, it's where all the minerals are. So there are always, you know, military groups in there trying to take the minerals. So he had to go to the

resident commander of whichever militia was there. And the guy said, "Well, it's a stupid idea. They can't do it possibly, but I suppose there's no harm in having to send soldiers with you." So now you imagine 15 little kids with their little saplings, and I suppose they've got something to dig with. And it's much further than they thought, and it's hot.

and with them are four big Congolese soldiers with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. So they finally get there and they start trying to make holes to plant their trees. And the youngest little girl starts to cry because the ground is so hard and she can't make the hole. And after about 10 minutes, one of the soldiers leans his gun against the tree

and goes to help her. And within the next 10, 15 minutes, all the soldiers had left their guns and were helping the children to plant trees. And to me, this is so symbolic of what we can do with young people.

determined to change the world. Dr. Goodall's long commitment to the development of young people includes emerging researchers whose work reflects her scientific and spiritual curiosity.

Earlier this year, inspired by Dr. Goodall, Templeton World Charity Foundation and the National Geographic Society launched the Wildlife Intelligence Project, a $2.7 million initiative to find and fund the next Jane Goodall's

Three early career scientists whose passion for and discoveries in wildlife field research have the potential to illuminate unknown wonders of our world and help shape the future of the field.

Dr. Goodall will be following the work of the awardees, who include biologist Mauricio Cantor, a researcher of the behavior of dolphins and humans, neurobiologist Felicity Muth, who explores how ecology shapes the behavior of wild bees, and primatologist and ethologist Thiago Falocico, who studies the behavior, social learning, and culture of wild capuchin monkeys.

In our next episode, we'll meet the three National Geographic explorers. But in the meantime, we wanted to hear from Dr. Goodall what she would share with the scientists who hope to follow in her footsteps. She starts with a caution. When these young scientists go out, there may be things that they see. And as I was told that I couldn't talk about those things because they didn't exist, they may face the same problem.

So they've got to be courageous. They've got to stick to their principles. They've got to understand that, you know, there is so, I mean, who would have agreed 10 years ago or 15 years ago that trees could communicate under the ground? It would have been laughed at. Who would have agreed bumblebees could learn to roll little balls into a hole and get a honey reward?

And other bumblebees who'd not been taught just by watching could do the same. People wouldn't have believed it. And, you know, a couple of hundred years ago, nobody believed Darwin. And it was the same for me. And I hope that these young explorers will also find things where the scientific community will ridicule them. And they must stay strong. Why does Dr. Goodall think their work is so important?

She says,

What do we need to do to learn new things about the world, to come up with new ideas, to make new connections? The answer is Dr. Goodall's most essential tool, one that doesn't rely on a college degree or technology. Discovery relies on observation. If you go out with a sort of mindset, a set of questions, a set of expectations, you'll miss what's out there in front of you.

So you have to keep an open mind. You have to listen and you have to watch and you have to be alert for seeing something that nobody's seen before, even though they've seen the same scene many, many times. That's the exploration of today, is to find the unexplored in areas that have been explored. That's what I think. And for these explorers today,

They must realize that there are still all these new things for them to discover. And they may feel they're treading where others have tread. But if they keep their eyes, their ears, their minds open, they will discover new things. The research of the National Geographic explorers is more important than ever, says Dr. Goodall. When I think of myself when I was starting out,

Everything was new. The world was different. We weren't facing climate change. We weren't facing loss of diversity. There was a lot of the world that was kind of pristine. And so for me, it was magic. For them, it's going to be much harder because they're operating in a world where we are facing all these dire threats to the future. And

To have young people who are prepared and able to go out into this new and damaged world is very, very important because there is still so much to learn. And even though we've lost a lot, there's a lot of magical wonder left and there's so much to find out by exploring it.

What will Dr. Filocico, Dr. Muth and Dr. Cantor need to be successful in their missions? Dr. Goodall's answer is not just for the National Geographic explorers. It's for all of us. Well, first of all, they need hope. They've got to hope that things are going to work out.

They've got to have tenacity, patience. They've got to be prepared to fail for reasons that have nothing to do with them. But maybe climate change will suddenly destroy a whole area where they're working. I mean, you know, with the changing weather patterns. So they've got to be prepared to tackle unexpected obstacles.

and not give up. Then I would say never forget that each one of you and all of us, everybody on the planet, every day we make some impact and most of us can choose what sort of impact we make. And although one person may feel, well, what I can do can't make any difference, when millions of people make even small ethical choices in how they live.

we change the world special thanks to dr jane goodall what a gift to have her on the program

If you enjoy the stories we share with you on the podcast, please follow us, give us a five-star rating, and share us with a friend. And be sure to sign up for the TWCF newsletter at templetonworldcharity.org. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and at storiesofimpact.org. This has been the Stories of Impact podcast with interviews by Richard Sergay.

Written and produced by Tavia Gilbert for TalkBox Productions. Senior producer Katie Flood. Assistant producer Oscar Falk. Production support by Mandy Moresh. Music by Alexander Filipiak. Mix and master by Kayla Elrod. Executive producer Michelle Cobb. The Stories of Impact podcast is generously supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation.