Torchbearer

Jane Goodall has long been the world's most renown student and friend of the chimpanzee—not to mention one of the great scientists of our time.

Photo by The Goodall Institute

She turns 70 next month, but it hardly means she's settling down. Rather, she's passionately trumpeting a new cause: teaching young people to build a better, more humane world—for themselves and all our animal cousins.

Jane Goodall has been educating people for decades, and lighting fires. Her books and films have allowed millions to live vicariously alongside humanity's closest relatives, the chimpanzees of Africa. But these days Goodall is on a new mission, urging humans—especially kids—to be better friends with the Earth and with their fellow creatures, both human and animal. She now devotes much of her enormous personal energy to building a new international youth organization, based largely in schools, called Roots and Shoots. She talked recently with NEA Today's Alain Jehlen.

After all these years studying chimpanzees, you've changed gears. What are you trying to accomplish?

Goodall: Well, central to part of it, still, is trying to conserve the chimps and their habitats in Africa. And to conserve the chimps, you have to conserve the forest. So many of Africa's problems are related to the unsustainable lifestyles of the developed world and the increase in population. But the problems are not just in Africa—they are around the world. I've met so many young people who seem to have lost hope and become bitter, and I feel this awful shame that we've destroyed so much of the planet since I was their age.

This feeling of frustration led to the youth groups?

Goodall: Yes. You know, I can kill myself to try and save a piece of forest with chimps in it. Somebody else can kill themselves trying to save a piece of forest with orangutans in it, and we can be successful. But, if we're not raising new generations to be better stewards than we've been, what's the point?

Tell us about this group.

Goodall: It started as a series of clubs in high schools in Tanzania in '91. At first, it developed quietly, with the help of about six teachers. But it has really taken off. The name is symbolic: roots make a firm foundation, shoots seem tiny, but to reach the light they can break through brick walls. And, if we see the brick walls as all the problems that we've inflicted on the planet—environmental and social problems, cruelty, crime, drugs, war—this is a program of hope. Hundreds of thousands of young people around the world can break through, and can make this a better world.

And are they doing that?

Goodall: Yes. What began in a very small, modest way gradually started to spread. Today, we have over 6,000 active groups in 87 countries around the world. The programs are from preschool through the university level. Every group tackles three different kinds of hands-on projects: to make the world a better place for 1) the animals around them (including domestic ones), 2) for their own human community, and 3) for the environment. And, since 9/11, we've really pushed our peace initiative, helping young people to understand people of other cultures, religions, and creeds.

Give us some examples of the work.

Goodall: In China, a group of high school kids in a rural area formed themselves into the Green Eyes Roots and Shoots and became very concerned about the way hunters were catching wild animals, and the way they were treated in markets, being killed for food. They went out, they got photographs, and though they had death threats, they really began to change attitudes. The young man who started it was 15!

In America, a middle school group in Ft. Worth, Texas, goes out and they are slowly, by hand, removing the exotic, invading plants from an area of prairie, and gradually restoring it to what it was before.

In Japan, another group of middle school kids are going into old people's homes, taking little gifts to the old people, and cheering them up and telling them stories. High school groups in many countries are going into senior citizens' complexes and recording oral history. Nothing makes an old, lonely person more happy than to share the stories from when they were young. And everybody's learning.

Who starts and leads these groups?

Goodall: They're created mostly in schools by teachers. And since

9/11, they have proliferated. It's racing across mainland China. The most important message is that every individual makes a difference every day. In Israel, they're getting people together from different factions, Palestinians, Arab Israelis, and Jewish Israelis.

So you're helping young people see their connections with each other, with animals, and the environment. That seems parallel to your earlier work. Would you say this is your central contribution to science?

Goodall: Well, I suppose it's blurring the line that used to be so sharp between animals and us. Once you've spent time with chimpanzees, you see that they think and have emotions. First of all, there was all the tool-using, which really staggered everyone, the fact that chimpanzees in the wild could use hand-made tools. They had foresight and were clearly thinking. And you can't spend time with chimps, or even watch films, and not realize that they're experiencing emotions very like those that we call happiness, sadness, fear, despair.

When you first began making these observations, how did people react?

Goodall: When I began, I was told I was doing it all wrong. The first paper I ever wrote, in '63, was about tool-using. And when it came back, everywhere I put "he" or "she" for chimps, it was crossed out and "it" was substituted. I crossed out the "its" and sent it back. And they published it with the "he's" and the "she's." It was the first victory.

But after 40 years, you're still fighting this battle.

Goodall: You know, I don't bother to fight it anymore. I just do it.

There are still the "its" out there. Most of the resistance comes from either people doing invasive, painful research on animals, or people who are dealing with animals in unpleasant ways like intensive farming or circus training.

What changes would you like to see in the way animals are treated?

Goodall: Oh, so many ways. The cruelty is vast and it's worldwide—laboratory experimentation on animals, training of animals to perform. Intensive farming is one of the very worst because it involves millions of animals. And, it's unbelievably cruel.

Should there be no medical experiments on animals?

Goodall: At least 80 percent of the research is unnecessary. A lot of it's just for cosmetics. And alternatives exist. But, there's no law, at least in this country, to enforce the use of alternatives, once they've been proven to be effective. Many of these alternatives are far safer.

What we need is a different way of thinking. Let's get together, with our brilliant brains, and find ways to eliminate this barbaric practice as soon as possible.

You clearly want children to experience the joy that animals can bring to life. How did you get started yourself?

Goodall: Well, I seemed to be born loving animals. We lived in London, didn't have much money. So I didn't have many animals to watch. But when I was four and a half, we went off on a holiday to a farm. I can remember meeting cows and pigs and horses, first time ever, face to face. One of my jobs was to collect the hens' eggs. But I became curious: Where was the hole on the hen big enough for the egg to come out? I was asking everybody, and clearly nobody satisfied my curiosity. So, I decided to find out for myself. I climbed into a hen house and waited. I must have waited at least four hours, and the family had no idea where I was. It was getting dark. They called the police.

Finally, Mom sees this excited little girl rushing towards the house, all covered with straw. Instead of scolding me, as so many others would, she saw my shining eyes and sat down to hear the wonderful story of how a hen lays an egg.

I always tell kids, even if other people have seen what you've just seen a thousand times, it doesn't take anything away from your feeling of excitement and pride when you do it for yourself.

That passion turned to chimpanzees and other apes. Are today's children going to witness the extinction of the great apes?

Goodall: We've almost reached the point of no return. But not quite. There is a growing awareness. The problems are so huge that I think the most we can hope for is to have large areas of forest made completely safe, big enough for the populations to be self-sustaining. But, many, many, many will go. They're bound to.

You're going to be 70 years old this April. Do you think you're ever going to retire?

Goodall: I planned a couple of years ago to get younger at each birthday, but other people don't seem to realize that. I certainly couldn't do what I'm doing now when I was 30. No way. I wouldn't have had the energy.

Why do you think that is?

Goodall: Well, partly, I suppose, I've got this mission. You know, when you're determined, you just do it.

Roots and Shoots

Roots and Shoots now claims 6,000 groups in 87 countries.

Photo by Don Milici

The United States has nearly 2,500 groups with 60,000 student members from the preschool to university level. Some are after-school clubs; others are classes with service learning projects. They work on everything from building birdhouses to volunteering at homeless shelters. If you're interested in getting your students connected, go to Roots and Shoots for suggestions for how to start, project ideas, and an online sign-up form. Roots and Shoots has developed a set of pilot-tested high school lesson plans and materials about individuals, the environment, and our society, based on one of Jane Goodall's books. Find them at Lessons for Hope. One Roots and Shoots high school group in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is working on the lessons in partnership with a group in Durban, South Africa, connected by videoconference. For more on the lesson plans, Lessons for Hope, or on Goodall's latest television special, Jane Goodall's Return to Gombe.