Ronda Green (chair WTA)

So sad to hear of the passing of Dr Jane Goodall. She has been an inspiration to so many of us.

Louis Leakey saw her potential as a highly-motivated young woman enthralled by animals and by the prospect of conducting research in the jungles of Africa, and he was right.

She said the experience of African wilderness was all she dreamed it would be, and she persevered for months, following shy chimpanzee groups, until she gained their trust enough to continue close observations. She went against protocol by naming the individual chimps and noting their personalities. She was told she was anthropomorphising by doing this, and should have just given each a number and stuck to observation without interpretation of their emotions, she responded that she had a very good teacher in early childhood, one who had taught her that animals do have emotions and personalities – her dog. Many years later she was asked if chimpanzees were her favourite animals, but she said (although she obviously loved them) they were too much like humans to be her favourite, and she actually preferred dogs.

Her discovery that chimpanzees made tools to use for catching termites came as something of a shock to the academic world, as one of the definitions of “man” was a maker of tools. Leakey responded “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

I loved reading about her first actual contact with a chimp. as the one she called David Greybeard reached out to touch fingers with her. I though of that during an experience I had with a captive chimp at Taronga Zoo. I had been observing the play behaviour of young chimpanzees in a large free-range enclosure, hoping some day to follow up with similar observations in the wild (which hasn’t happened as yet). I was in the keepers’ room next to the night cage and a young chimp approached, pressed her back to the bars and indicated she’d ike a scratch. I happily obliged. Then her mother approached, looked deep into my eyes and extended a finger. As our fingertips touched, I was very struck by the similarity of our hands: okay, hers was black and a bit knobblier than mine, but such similar knuckles and fingernails. We held each others’ gaze for a few seconds and then she moved on. I felt very honoured, and thought how very wonderful that first moment must have been for Jane,, alone with the chimps in the wilds of Africa after so many months of dedicated effort.

My son and I stayed overnight at Jane’s Chimpanzee Eden in South Africa many years ago, a beautiful hacienda set within African bushland inhabited by kudus, impalas and many other species. The large chimp enclosure near the buildings has mainly been planted with exotic trees (long before the purchase for the chimps), and it seemed a little strange looking up into eucalyptus and jacarandas to see chimpanzees looking down at us. Jane has accompanied rescued chimps to be released back into the wild, but this facility is for those that can’t be released for whatever reason (such as violent human conflict in their countries of origin), having been confiscated from owners who had either kept them as pets until too large and powerful, or chained or caged in solitary confinement as publicity for hotels or other businesses. Young ones at Chimpanzee Eden are introduced to kindergarten-style climbing apparatuses to learn basic skills, then allowed outdoors with clumps of food tied in trees to encourage them to learn to live the way they should do, climbing, exploring and socialising with others of their species. I was delighted to get a chance to briefly meet Jane at Monarto Zoo in South Australia afterwards and tell her how we enjoyed that experience.

Jane was very disturbed when returning to Gombe some time after her research to see how much of the original forest surrounding it had been cleared, and has dedicated most of her life since then to spreading awareness for the importance of conservation of wild places. Her Roots and Shoots project has inspired many teachers and children across the world, and the Jane Goodall Institute, including an Australian branch, is continuing her valuable work.

She was a prolific writer, and much has been written about her. See the catalogues at her Institute and Amazon (I’ve including the latter largely as I can’t see her first book “In the Shadow of Man” on the former website). She had seen many of the world’s problems, but kept alive a message of hope for both world peace and biodiversity conservation, a refusal to give up on such hope, which we could all well emulate.

I wish she could have spent more time on this planet. She was working till the end, on a speaking tour, and was due to be a keynote speaker this month at IUCN’s World Conservation Congress. At least it is merciful that she departed peacefully in her sleep.

Always to be remembered!