Interview with Jane Goodall: A singular passion

Audrey Phoon Business Times 23 Jul 11;

Small actions can make a big difference, and for those who aren't convinced there is living proof in the form of Jane Goodall. Here, the world's most well known ecological activist shares her story and methods for effecting change in a resistant field.

JANE Goodall was just four years old when she began studying animals and sharing her findings. That's when she hid in a henhouse for several hours to observe a hen laying eggs. 'When I saw the eggs come out, I was really excited. My mother remembers me rushing towards the house covered in straw to share the news,' she recalls.

Dr Goodall was here recently to speak at the Ideas for a Better World forum organised by the Singapore International Foundation. Now 77, and looking astonishingly fresh-faced after just two hours of sleep, she has built a career around her passion for animals.

Over the years, there have been many similar episodes to those in the henhouse. They vary in length and scope (from hours with chickens to moments with giraffes and years with primates) but the one that really put her onto television screens and newspapers around the globe began in 1957.

At a friend's invitation to stay at her family's farm and experience the African wildlife, the Londoner embarked on a 22-day solo passage to Kenya, or what was then known as the British protectorate of Tanganyika. Recalling the journey, she says cheekily: 'It was wonderful. I had so much fun and of course I flirted with the sailors; just a few lovely shipboard flirtations. But I'm not talking about jumping into bed with people - we didn't in those days. Today it could mean something different.'

Such girlish concerns, however, went out the window when she saw her first wild giraffe soon after her arrival. Subsequently, instead of joining the party circuit like her friends, she sought out the Kenyan archaeologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey, who in 1960 assigned her to do a field study of a group of wild chimpanzees in western Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park. The plucky young Dr Goodall then set up camp amid the park's steep valleys and tropical rainforests for a year and a half, most of it spent in the sole company of the primates and one native cook, who was her only link with the outside world.

'I would set out at 5.30 in the morning when it was dark, not knowing what I'd see that day,' she says of her routine there. 'Back then we didn't know what we take for granted now in the primate world, so a lot of things were very new and surprising.'

In fact, much of mankind's currently accepted knowledge about chimpanzees was acquired by Dr Goodall herself during that stint. While at Gombe, she made several significant discoveries, such as learning that primates are capable of rational thought and emotions, and that they make and use tools - things that scientists had earlier presumed only humans could do. Her work in Africa established her as one of the world's leading authorities on chimps and helped her develop a reputation as one of the world's most effective ecological activists; she is perhaps the only one whose very name is something of a brand.

That name is today stamped on everything from international conservation programmes and books, to movies and toys such as Mr H, which Dr Goodall has brought with her to this interview. The cuddly monkey, who is beadily observing the proceedings from a side table, is her official mascot; for US$15 on the Jane Goodall Institute website, he can be yours, too. 'We try to sell things that have a message, and he has a big message - he represents peace and hope,' says the good doctor, who is also a United Nations Messenger of Peace and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Softly softly
Some, understandably, have scoffed at this rather fuzzy and commercial method of conveying a serious message. Yet that soft approach is surely why Dr Goodall is such a success at connecting with people and effecting change. While she is on the road a punishing 300 days a year on average to raise awareness of ecological issues, her campaign has never had an aggressive tone to it. 'With corporations, governments, individuals - it's the same. You've got to find a way to talk to them and you can't do it through the head, you have to find a way through the heart,' she reasons. 'And you can't do it by being accusing and pointing a finger. You can only do it by talking, finding who the people (at the root of the problem) are, and basically by telling stories. That's the way I work, anyway.'

It's an approach, she says, that she has adopted from her Gombe companions, for whom 'support is key'. Chimpanzees also often show patience and affection towards one another and refrain from punishing their young, waiting it out until the child knows it has done something wrong, which pays off in the long run, observes the primatologist. 'Offspring brought up this way go on to play a higher role in society - the males are high ranking and the females grow up to be good mothers. The others have difficulty forming relaxed relationships and they don't do very well.'

To maintain the research at Gombe, which is now the world's longest continuous wildlife study, the 'chimpanzee lady' - as Dr Goodall is sometimes better known, although 'it doesn't bother me because it means that people are on the right path' - set up the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) in 1977. But out of necessity its focus has broadened to include chimps in other areas, wildlife in Tanzania and the promotion of conservation in general. 'In the old days, communities living in the forests were sensibly sustainable, but money changed them. Now they're paid to hunt animals commercially and foreign logging companies have opened up forests with roads that enable hunters to go out and bring meat out on trucks, which is totally unsustainable. So we're trying to counteract this.'

So far the JGI has helped conserve more than 11,000 sq km of forest in three chimpanzee-range countries, and provided over 600,000 people with access to improved livelihoods and infrastructure via the programmes that it runs. These include the TACARE programme, which partners with communities to create sustainable livelihoods while promoting conservation goals; and Roots & Shoots, which targets youth in 127 countries and which Dr Goodall is particularly proud of.

'I think the most important thing to realise is that I could kill myself raising money for chimps and saving forests or whatever, but if we're not raising the next generation to be better stewards than us, what's the point?' she muses. 'So Roots & Shoots is the future, and the potential for young people to change the world is hugest. Children change their parents and their grandparents, and some of those parents and grandparents are powerful people, who then change their own behaviour. In that way you've just swelled the outreach and the potential for change.'

She relates one first-hand experience of this: One man was the director of a big primate research lab, where the conditions were horrible. Dr Goodall talked about the lab in none too glowing terms. 'Unknown to me, his daughter was in the audience, and she went back crying to her father. He hated me at first, but then he thought about it and found the funds to change things. The lab is miles better now. Later on, he came to me and said he realised what he was doing was wrong.'

Of course, the responsibility to change the way we live doesn't rest solely on the shoulders of the younger generation, Dr Goodall emphasises. 'It's honestly a mixture. The potential for governments to introduce legislation is huge too, as is the potential for corporations to help. Initially some of the steps that businesses took to show more corporate social responsibility were just green washing; they didn't do much about it. But I find more and more corporations now where people genuinely want to make a difference. They realise that resources are not unlimited.'

What, then, is an effective way for businesses to go about change? 'The first thing is to assess if you have any environmental damage, what it is and in what ways you can do something about it. Secondly, if you're doing it in the developing world, how fair are you being to people you employ? So often people are not being paid fairly. And the other thing is, if a big MNC goes in and says it wants to grow some kind of crop for its own country and its own buyers, the local people get pushed out and their cultures swept aside. The money goes into government pockets and the people get poorer and poorer.

'This crippling poverty gets worse all the time. And crippling poverty destroys the environment, because people have to somehow feed themselves, so they cut down the last trees even though they know it's going to be a desert. But what can they do? The corporations really have to start changing the way they operate.'

Making a difference

Meanwhile, for their part, individuals should 'push towards green energy and sustainable living',' Dr Goodall suggests. 'Even houses in England, where there's hardly ever any sun, have solar panels now. And the British government pays half towards solar energy. Then there's windpower, tides, methane ... all the landfills could be turned into energy too, and in some cases they are.

'We also need to reduce population growth and materialistic society's obsession with buying stuff. We need so little - a roof over our heads, some food, some clothes ... personally I don't like shopping but I realise you have to look nice - otherwise it's rude. But that's it.'

With the advancement of technology and a wider web of communication channels, the world's awareness of ecological issues is at an all-time high. Yet very few people have changed their behaviour, Dr Goodall laments, citing a recent survey which showed that while there is widespread awareness of climate change in the UK, not many people are doing anything about it.

'People care but they don't know what to do. They think 'oh, I'm just one person and there's nothing I can do, it's up to governments and corporations, not me'. But my message is that every person makes a difference every day. You make an impact and you have a choice. Once people get that and think about the consequences, they start making a change. A small change may be nothing, but multiply it by a million people and it's huge.'

If it's tough enough to change one's lifestyle, imagine what it must be like to coax billions of people to do the same. But mention that to Dr Goodall and she retorts with a spirited flick of her snow-white ponytail: 'The world is stubborn, but so am I. I was brought up never to give up, that's what my mother said when I wanted to go to Africa. It was the dark continent with no planes going back and forth; it was a frightening place and I was a girl. Of course people laughed at me. But there was my mother saying, if you really want something, work hard, take advantage of opportunity and never give up. You'll find a way.'

Jane Goodall
Primatologist and ecological activist

1934 Born in London

1957 Sets sail in the Kenya Castle to visit a friend's farm in Kenya. Meets archaeologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey, who hires her as an assistant

1960 Sets up camp in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park; lives for a year and a half observing chimpanzees

1962 Leakey sends her to Cambridge University to get a PhD in Ethology

1977 Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) established to support ongoing Gombe research project

1991 JGI's global youth programme, Roots & Shoots, launched. Today it has more than 10,000 groups in over 100 countries

2002 Named UN Messenger of Peace

2004 Made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

2007 Singapore branch of JGI founded; it becomes part of the institute's network of 26 offices worldwide

2010 Her latest documentary, Jane's Journey, one of the most in-depth films on the ecological activist, is released. The Gombe project, the world's longest continuous wildlife study, commemorates its 50th year with a global celebration