There Is Still Hope to Save the Planet, Jane Goodall Says
By IAN FEIN
Jane Goodall has seen a lot of sad things in the world.
But she still finds reasons for hope, and she shared that message
with a packed Vineyard audience at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs on
Thursday evening.
"I have three grandchildren, and my sister has two. And when I
look at them and think about how much ill we've done to this
planet since we were their age, I feel guilt and anger," Ms.
Goodall said.
"But if we can just get through this terrible apathy that
falls upon people because they feel so helpless in the face of all the
huge problems in the world, and get them to understand that what little
bit they can do will have a great effect if carried out by millions of
other people, then there's hope in future," she said.
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/08/08/content/jane_goodall_tabernacle_sm.jpg" The Tabernacle event was a shared fund-raiser for the Felix Neck
Wildlife Sanctuary and the Jane Goodall Institute.
Perhaps no other person in the last 50 years has had such an impact
on our appreciation of the world around us. Her pioneering research with
wild chimpanzees almost a half-century ago forever changed our
understanding of human and animal behavior.
Ms. Goodall retold her life story on Thursday, tracing how an
unassuming British girl grew up to become an international environmental
icon. She said that she knew at a very early age that she wanted to move
to Africa, live with the animals and write books about them. So she
saved up money, quit her job in London and headed to Africa in her
mid-20s - which was practically unheard of for a female at the
time.
The breakthrough in her research came when she witnessed chimpanzees
using grass as a tool to eat fleas.
"Back then, people thought humans and only humans used and
made tools - it's what defined man," Ms. Goodall
explained. "But after what I saw, you'd either have to
redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as humans."
Ms. Goodall discovered these similarities between humans and
chimpanzees years before genetics research confirmed a closeness in our
DNA codes. She was also the first to document that chimpanzees, like
humans, have different personalities - with some being nice, some
nasty, some courageous and some generous.
"People always ask me if I prefer humans or chimps," she
said. "And I say I like some humans better than some chimps, and
like some chimps better than some humans."
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/08/08/content/jane_goodall_felix_neck_sm.jpg" As one of the first people to talk about personalities in animal
behavior, Ms. Goodall ran into difficulty at Cambridge University, where
she was studying for her Ph.D. Such talk was considered inappropriate at
the time, and she was criticized by professors for naming different
chimpanzees, instead of using numbers.
But even though she was not supposed to talk about personalities or
emotions, Ms. Goodall learned a trick: "Instead of saying that
Fifi was very jealous, I would say, ‘The chimp acted in such a way
that, had she been a human, we would have said she was
jealous.'"
The different personalities ran the gamut, however, and Ms. Goodall
said she witnessed interspecies violence in chimpanzees, particularly
between neighborhood social groups.
"Chimps, like us, can have a dark side to their nature,"
she said. "It sounds really familiar - horrifyingly familiar
- doesn't it?"
The human population is also now killing off the chimpanzees, Ms.
Goodall noted, saying that the world chimp population went from roughly
two million a century ago to about a million in 1960, and is now down to
no more than 200,000.
She said logging roads have allowed access to hunters, who are
picking off all types of animals for lucrative bush meat, which they
sell around the world. But the chimpanzees are also disappearing because
of habitat destruction, caused by rapid human population growth around
the forest edge.
Ms. Goodall said the situation posed a difficult conundrum, because
many were refugees fleeing from violence in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
"The question that came into my mind was: How can we even
think of saving chimpanzees, when people here are clearly struggling to
survive?" she said. "I realized we can't just save
chimps, we have to thing in much bigger terms. You can't fix just
a tiny piece of the puzzle and expect it all to come together."
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/08/08/content/jane_goodall_portrait_sm.jpg" As an answer, Ms. Goodall embraced the concept of community-based
conservation and started a program called Roots and Shoots, which tries
to improve the lives of local people and teach them to appreciate and
responsibly use the natural world around them.
In the 14 years since its founding, the Roots and Shoots program,
which inspires young people to enact projects within their own
communities, has become an international success.
"It has turned people around. You can see their lives have
improved," she said. "They love the program, and they are
now a part of us. They're helping us conserve the land. They
understand."
The program now has about 8,000 groups in almost 100 countries,
including two on the Vineyard, the members of which met with Ms. Goodall
and a few Island educators at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary on Friday
morning.
"This gives me hope because everywhere I go I meet young
people who can show me what they have done to make world a better
place," Ms. Goodall said.
She also explained the symbolism and significance of the
program's name.
"Roots make a firm foundation. And shoots seem tiny, but to
reach sun can break through brick wall," she said. "If we
think of all our problems as a brick wall, then hundreds of thousands of
young people across world can break through and make this a better
world."
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