Jane Goodall Institute
“Their work empowers people to make a difference for all living things. It builds on Dr. Goodall’s scientific work and her humanitarian vision. Specifically, they seek to (i) improve global understanding and treatment of great apes through research, public education and advocacy.
Secondly, to contribute to the preservation of great apes and their habitats by combining conservation with education and promotion of sustainable livelihoods in local communities and (iii) to create a worldwide network of young people who have learned to care deeply for their human community, for all animals and for the environment, and who will take responsible action to care for them.
IN AFRICA
Jane Goodall arrived in Africa, full of dreams. Even as a child, she’d dreamed of living among wild animals and writing about them. Tarzan and Dr. Dolittle were her favorite books, and she knew she’d be a much better jungle companion for Tarzan than that other Jane. African wildlife adventures were an unlikely calling for a little girl in the 1930s and 1940s. But from the beginning, Jane’s mother, Vanne, was encouraging. “You can do whatever you set your mind to,” she said.
Jane has a special connection to young people. They respond not only to her passion for and curiosity about animals, but to her courage and hope for a better world. Reaching out to these young people is a high priority for Jane, and conservation education, as well as general education, is a critical part of JGI’s work today. Jane hears firsthand the voices of young people from Tanzania to China, North America to the United Kingdom speaking of the need for change, their hopes, and their determination to make a better world. She carries their message to audiences all over the world.
When Jane was 22 and working as an assistant in a London film studio, an opportunity arose. Her friend Clo sent a letter, inviting Jane to her family’s new farm in Kenya. Jane wasted no time moving back home, to Bournemouth, so she could earn money as a waitress and save up for the round-trip passage to Africa. Every night after work, she put her earnings under the carpet in the drawing room.
In 1957, she set sail. The Kenya Castle docked in Mombasa on April 2. Within weeks, Jane met Louis S. B. Leakey, famed archaeologist and paleontologist. He was taken with Jane’s energy, general knowledge and avid interest in animals. He hired her as an assistant and eventually asked Jane to undertake a study of a group of wild chimpanzees living on a lakeshore in Tanzania. He reasoned that knowledge about wild chimpanzees, who were little-understood at the time, could shed light on our evolutionary past.
TANZANIA
In July 1960, Jane stepped onto the beach at Gombe. Her mother had traveled with her, to satisfy British authorities who didn’t want a young woman living alone in the jungle (Tanzania was “Tanganyika” at that time, a British protectorate). The first weeks at Gombe were frustrating for Jane. The chimpanzees were very shy and fled whenever they saw her. Jane was discouraged, but one day found a good vantage point, high on the highest peak, to observe the chimps’ comings and goings with her binoculars.
Chimps were thought to be vegetarians, but one day from her peak, Jane saw a chimpanzee, ‘David Greybeard’, feeding on a baby bush pig, sharing the flesh with a female. She would see chimpanzees hunting monkeys and other small mammals many times at Gombe.
Within two weeks of that first meat-eating, Jane saw something that excited her even more. She was hiking up to the peak when she saw a chimp through the undergrowth. It was David again, this time at a termite mound. He was using a long flexible probe to fish termites out of their nests. Jane made a rough hide of some palm fronds so she could observe the action the next time chimps came to the termite nests. Sure enough, David came back, this time with a big chimp named Goliath. Jane watched, breathless, as they stripped leaves off the stems to fashion the fishing tools. Into the holes went the probes. Out they came with termites clinging to them–tasty snacks for the two chimps. David and Goliath were making and using tools.
Up until that point, anthropologists saw tool-making as a defining trait of mankind. When Jane wrote Louis Leakey of her discovery, he replied: ‘Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.’ The distinction between man and ape was blurring. Leakey was ecstatic. He obtained further funding for Jane’s study and arranged for Jane, who had no degree, to enroll in Cambridge University as a doctoral student.
Jane’s life today is sometimes exhausting, but always driven by purpose. She is determined to use just about every minute she has working to save chimpanzees and to empower people, young and old to do what they can for a better world.”
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