Speaker 1: One of the most admired people in the world is
Speaker 1: doctor Jane Goodall. About sixty years ago, she moved to
Speaker 1: Africa to study chimpanzees and what she learned revolutionize our
Speaker 1: understanding of what non humans can do. Today, she's devoting
Speaker 1: herself to inspiring young people around the world to do
Speaker 1: much more to protect the climate and the environment for
Speaker 1: animals in Africa and all over the world. I had
Speaker 1: a chance to sit down with doctor Jane Goodall recently
Speaker 1: and learned firsthand why this woman eighty nine years old
Speaker 1: is still so admired and dedicated to helping make the
Speaker 1: planet a better place. So thank you very much for
Speaker 1: coming here, and we're going to go through a lot
Speaker 1: of what you've done and the things that made you
Speaker 1: make you so popular. On your last name that kind
Speaker 1: of describes everything good All. So you ever thought of
Speaker 1: changing the good for All because you're doing so many
Speaker 1: other things or great All?
Speaker 2: Or do we do have on our website Good for
Speaker 2: All News, which is because I truly believe that the
Speaker 2: media we need to know the doom and the gloom.
Speaker 2: We do, but why don't they give more time to
Speaker 2: the amazing people, wonderful projects around the world that you
Speaker 2: read and people will say, wow, they did that. Well,
Speaker 2: we could do it too.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you're inspired a lot of people, no doubt
Speaker 1: a lot of people here I've read about what you've done.
Speaker 1: Let's go through how this came about. The outset. So
Speaker 1: you grew up in London or in England, England, England,
Speaker 1: and when you're one year old you read a you
Speaker 1: were given a book or something about chimpanzees. Is that
Speaker 1: true work?
Speaker 2: It was my father, who I really didn't know because
Speaker 2: it was just before World War two and he joined
Speaker 2: out as soon as war was declared. But he gave
Speaker 2: me a stuff Chimpanzee Jubilee. He was the name for
Speaker 2: the first chimpanzee born in the London Zoo and the
Speaker 2: jubilee of Queen George and Mary, I suppose, and I
Speaker 2: took him everywhere with me. But people have the misapprehension
Speaker 2: that because of that I studied chimpanzees. Wasn't true. The
Speaker 2: chimpanzee interests began, you know, I finally saved up money.
Speaker 2: I had to be a waitress. We had no money
Speaker 2: in my family and we couldn't even afford university. So
Speaker 2: I did this boring old secretarial course. Then I got
Speaker 2: invited to Kenya by a school friend, and so I
Speaker 2: worked as a waitress to save up the fair. And
Speaker 2: so I would have studied any animal. I was ten
Speaker 2: years old when my dream was I'll go to Africa,
Speaker 2: live with wild animals and write books about them. Why
Speaker 2: because I was in love with Tarzan.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, you did that at ten years old. So
Speaker 1: you told your mother you'd like to go to Africa
Speaker 1: and see the chimpanzees. And what did she say?
Speaker 2: Not the and thees. I would have studied anything.
Speaker 1: Well, what did your mother say to anything? Did she did? Think?
Speaker 2: Your mother I to attribute a great deal of who
Speaker 2: I am and what I've done to the wise way
Speaker 2: that she brought me up. She was supported. So when
Speaker 2: I said I wanted to go to Africa, everybody laughed
Speaker 2: at me. How will you do that? Africa's far away,
Speaker 2: you don't have money, it's dangerous, and you're just a girl.
Speaker 2: Remember this is going back seventy years now that my
Speaker 2: mother said, if you really want to do this, you're
Speaker 2: going to have to work really hard, take advantage of
Speaker 2: every opportunity, and if you don't give up, hopefully find
Speaker 2: a way.
Speaker 1: So you save your money and you went and you
Speaker 1: told your parents you're really going to Africa. They didn't say, well,
Speaker 1: that was nice to talk about it, but you really
Speaker 1: can't do it. They really didn't care if you went.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Well my father was out of it. He was still
Speaker 2: you know a way they divorced and that was my
Speaker 2: mother and you know, she just said, well, stick with
Speaker 2: it if you want to do it. And do you
Speaker 2: know how many people have written to me and said, Jane,
Speaker 2: I want to thank you because you did it, I
Speaker 2: can do it too.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you did this at the age of twenty three,
Speaker 1: you go to How did you pick which part of Africa?
Speaker 1: How did you get to Tanzania for example?
Speaker 2: Well, because my friend's parents had bought a farm in Kenya,
Speaker 2: and while I was there, I met the famous paleontologist
Speaker 2: Lewis Leiki and he gave me this opportunity to go
Speaker 2: and study not just any animal, but the one most
Speaker 2: like us, chimpanzee. I would have studied a mouse if
Speaker 2: I could be out in the Africa.
Speaker 1: So Lewis Leaky was the famous paleontologist who more or
Speaker 1: less came up with the theory that humans pretty much
Speaker 1: evolved out of southern Africa. Yeah, and he was famous
Speaker 1: for that. And did you get to know him or.
Speaker 2: A very well? Because you know, I told you I
Speaker 2: had to do that boring secretarial cause when I heard
Speaker 2: about Louis LeKi and went to see him, his secretary
Speaker 2: had just left. He needed a secretary there, I was.
Speaker 2: So I'm right now surrounded by people who can answer
Speaker 2: all my questions about the animals and the birds and everything.
Speaker 1: And so at one point, you said I really want
Speaker 1: to go live with the chimpanzees.
Speaker 2: No I didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, as I said, you didn't say that, right, What
Speaker 1: did you say?
Speaker 2: I told him I really wanted to study animals, okay,
Speaker 2: And for some reason, although I hadn't been to college,
Speaker 2: he believed that I could do what he'd been looking
Speaker 2: for someone for ten years. He told me to go
Speaker 2: and study not just any animal, but our closest living relatives,
Speaker 2: the chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he said, okay. Eventually, how long had you
Speaker 1: worked for him before he said you could do this?
Speaker 1: A year? A year? So he said, okay, you're going
Speaker 1: to do this. But did he just give you a
Speaker 1: guidance or to tell you where to go?
Speaker 2: Or no, he didn't have money, so it took him
Speaker 2: a year to get the money. Tanzania with the chimps
Speaker 2: were and are was still part of the British Protectorate
Speaker 2: and the authorities. The British authorities said, we won't take
Speaker 2: responsibility for this young girl. But Leaky never gave up
Speaker 2: sewing me and they said, yes, but she can't come alone.
Speaker 2: So who volunteered that same amazing supportive mother.
Speaker 1: Your mother came with you to Africa to study the chimpanzees.
Speaker 2: Well, she didn't do the study. She looked off to
Speaker 2: the camp.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So when eventually you do get there,
Speaker 1: just to live with the chimpanzees, you're supposed to live
Speaker 1: with them, is that right?
Speaker 2: Live with them and learn from them.
Speaker 1: But do you get a tent or something?
Speaker 2: Or a tent?
Speaker 1: You had a tent? So was it? Were they dangerous?
Speaker 1: I mean, weren't you worried they might attack you?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, for me, we had an old ex
Speaker 2: army tent, Mam and I between us, no nice sown
Speaker 2: in ground sheet and mosquito windows, nothing like that. And
Speaker 2: I would go happily up into the mountains every morning
Speaker 2: for doing my dream. Mom would be left in the camp,
Speaker 2: and if you wanted air in that tent, you rolled
Speaker 2: up the side flaps and tied them with tape and
Speaker 2: in came air, but also scorpions, spiders, snakes, which I
Speaker 2: didn't mind about. But poor Mom.
Speaker 1: I mean, so you set up, you set up a tent,
Speaker 1: and how did you engage the chimpanzees? How did you
Speaker 1: kind of get close to them? How did you not
Speaker 1: worry about their attacking you? How did you befriend them.
Speaker 2: With great difficulty? For four months? I remember I had
Speaker 2: sick money for six months. For four of those months,
Speaker 2: they ran away as soon as they saw me. And
Speaker 2: you know, I knew, given time that I could win
Speaker 2: that trust. But did I have the time? The days
Speaker 2: turned to weeks, ton to months, and it was wonderful
Speaker 2: because what Mom did. She boosted my morality, said, Jane,
Speaker 2: you found that peak, and with your binoculars you seeing
Speaker 2: how chimps wander around by themselves in small groups, big
Speaker 2: groups when there's a new food available. You're learning about
Speaker 2: the calls they make, the foods they eat, how they
Speaker 2: make nests at night, and so she really helped to
Speaker 2: boost When we're all all.
Speaker 1: Right, so you weren't trained as a scientist, so you
Speaker 1: used your powers of observation to see what they were doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and my in bore love of animals, my curiosity,
Speaker 2: my fascination. Leaky told me nothing. He never even visited Gombe.
Speaker 1: So when you go to see the chimpanzees, you first
Speaker 1: engage them. Do you give him some food or something
Speaker 1: to kind of narrow them? No?
Speaker 2: I just tried to get them used to me, and eventually,
Speaker 2: and it was very sad. It was just two weeks
Speaker 2: after Mum left that I saw this one famous chimpanzee,
Speaker 2: very handsome. I called him David Grabiad. It was the
Speaker 2: first one to lose his fear. And on this special
Speaker 2: day I saw him using grass stems to fish termis
Speaker 2: from their nest.
Speaker 1: Okay, does it get lonely out there? Just you and
Speaker 1: the champanzees. There's no cell phones, there's no anything. You you
Speaker 1: get lonely.
Speaker 2: We have lap computers at that time, So lonely all day?
Speaker 1: What did you do all they just look at the champanzees,
Speaker 1: try to get close to them.
Speaker 2: Tried to get close when possible. I watched some of
Speaker 2: my binoculars. Sometimes I stayed out if they nested, I
Speaker 2: would go back to have supper with Mum. Then I
Speaker 2: would go back up so that I could be near
Speaker 2: them in the morning. And I was scared of leopards.
Speaker 2: Back then, we had leopards at Gombi, and I would
Speaker 2: hear them at night when I was up there alone
Speaker 2: with my little blanket, and I would hear the leopards
Speaker 2: hunting sound, and I think, pull the blanket over my head. O.
Speaker 1: Did you ever say to yourself, how did I get
Speaker 1: myself into this? Or do you always say I'm glad
Speaker 1: I'm doing this.
Speaker 2: No, I was following my dream. I was They were
Speaker 2: the best days of my life.
Speaker 1: So eventually you go back to doctor Leaky and you
Speaker 1: give them a report on what you've learned. And in
Speaker 1: that report you kind of changed the perception around the
Speaker 1: world of chimpanzees because people thought at that time, as
Speaker 1: I understand it, that chimpanzees are not capable of making tools.
Speaker 1: Only humans could do that, right, And you discovered they
Speaker 1: make tools for what purpose?
Speaker 2: Fishing for termites, crumpling leaves to get water from a
Speaker 2: hollow in a tree that they can't reach with their lips.
Speaker 1: Did you ever eat the termites yourself. Are they tasty
Speaker 1: or well I had.
Speaker 2: To eat one just to say I'd done so.
Speaker 1: So after you gave your report to doctor Leaky, he
Speaker 1: I guess sent it to somebody and people said, how
Speaker 1: can this woman not trained as a scientist come up
Speaker 1: with a discovery that we famous scientists didn't know about?
Speaker 1: Is that the essence of the problem.
Speaker 2: They were keep the hurrogans, most of them, and you know,
Speaker 2: they were saying things like, well, she's just a girl,
Speaker 2: she's straight out from England. Why should we believe her.
Speaker 2: One of them even said maybe she taught the chimps
Speaker 2: to use tools, which as they were running away at
Speaker 2: the time with them.
Speaker 1: So eventually National Geographic decides to get a photographer to
Speaker 1: come over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the National Geographic came after a Leaky approached them
Speaker 2: and they said, we will fund James resort after the
Speaker 2: six months money.
Speaker 1: Now the National Geographic came over and was able to
Speaker 1: get people to interested in this because of what reason?
Speaker 2: This is what the scientist said. The scientist said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, the geographics giving her money because they can
Speaker 2: put her on the cover because she's got nice legs.
Speaker 2: So okay, if that would happen today, there'd be a
Speaker 2: lawsuit back then. I just thought, well, I mean there
Speaker 2: was a different world back then, and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: if my legs have got me the money to do
Speaker 2: what I want to do, which is buddy win, thank
Speaker 2: you legs.
Speaker 1: So well. Nasa Jay GRapi sent the photographer over, they
Speaker 1: took the pictures. It became a famous article and then
Speaker 1: you became pretty well known. Did you decide to go
Speaker 1: back to England and do something else then get your PhD?
Speaker 1: Or no?
Speaker 2: Leaky wrote to me and said I picked you because
Speaker 2: you had not been to university and your brain wasn't
Speaker 2: wasn't you know, sutted up with the very arrogant way
Speaker 2: scientists treated animals back then as mere things. But he said,
Speaker 2: now I want you to be to be respected by
Speaker 2: other scientists, so you must get a degree. But we
Speaker 2: don't have time for an undergraduate degree. I've got you
Speaker 2: a place in Cambridge University in England to do a
Speaker 2: PhD intology. Well, I didn't know what ethology means, so
Speaker 2: Budy and behavior, so you.
Speaker 1: Skip the undergraduate part and you got a PhD.
Speaker 2: And I was very very nervous. You can imagine I'd
Speaker 2: never been to college, and just imagine what I felt
Speaker 2: like when I was told by the scientists. Well, first
Speaker 2: of all, you shouldn't give them the chimpanzee names. It's
Speaker 2: if you're a proper silenist, you give them numbers. Then
Speaker 2: they said you can't talk about their personalities, their minds,
Speaker 2: or their emotions. Those are unique to us. They also
Speaker 2: said you must not have empathy with your subjects, because
Speaker 2: a good scientist is objective and if you have empathy,
Speaker 2: you can't be objective, which is rubbish.
Speaker 1: So you got your PhD. Did you say now I'm
Speaker 1: going to teach at Cambridge or decide to go back
Speaker 1: to Africa? Oh?
Speaker 2: I was going back in between because I was still learning.
Speaker 2: We're still learning after sixty three years.
Speaker 1: Chimpionzees, you discovered, actually are not quite as nice as
Speaker 1: you wanted them to be. They kill each other from
Speaker 1: time to time. Is that right?
Speaker 2: They have? The males are territorial, and if they see
Speaker 2: an individual from a neighboring community, communities are gonna be
Speaker 2: about fifty and that that individual will probably die.
Speaker 1: And when you, let's say, go away, go back to England,
Speaker 1: come back, they recognize you. You Yeah, And how did
Speaker 1: they befriend you when you come back and they like you,
Speaker 1: do they bring you a gift or they bring you something.
Speaker 2: I never wanted that kind of relationship dieing Fossy with
Speaker 2: the gorillas. She did, but I wanted to, like looking
Speaker 2: through a window, I wanted to watch the behavior as
Speaker 2: it is without me being in the picture.
Speaker 1: Hey, so for many years you're living in Africa, no electricity,
Speaker 1: no cell phones, no television, none of the important things
Speaker 1: you need in life to get by, right.
Speaker 2: No, No, they're not important at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, so like, obviously they can talk to each other,
Speaker 1: but is it possible that that humans can convey some
Speaker 1: type of language to chimpanzees or teach them how to
Speaker 1: add wasn't that whatever you were working on at one point,
Speaker 1: teaching them how to addition or words? And how did
Speaker 1: that work? Did they go?
Speaker 2: Well? I never have. But chimpanzees have been taught sign language,
Speaker 2: and they can learn up to about seven hundred words
Speaker 2: that deaf people use, and from that you can learn
Speaker 2: fascinating things like, for example, some chimpanzees love to paint
Speaker 2: or draw. Not all of them, and these are captive ones,
Speaker 2: of course, but one young chimpanzee she was four years old,
Speaker 2: and she used to film her page with lovely lines
Speaker 2: of different colors, and on this occasion she made a
Speaker 2: drawing like that, and so her teacher handed the paperback
Speaker 2: and signed finish, so that Mpanzee looked at it and
Speaker 2: handed it back and said finished. And so this went
Speaker 2: on about two times, and then the teacher had the
Speaker 2: brains to say what is it? And the chimpanzee signed
Speaker 2: back a bull. Well, a human if doing a bull
Speaker 2: would do a bull, right, what's the chimp done? The bulbs?
Speaker 2: And that gives you a whole new feeling of looking
Speaker 2: at the world through the eyes of a chimp. She's
Speaker 2: doing the movement?
Speaker 1: Wow. So why do you think people are so fascinated
Speaker 1: by what you have achieved in your life? I mean,
Speaker 1: when you were doing this, you didn't do this for
Speaker 1: a world to claim you were doing it because you're
Speaker 1: interested in it. But it turns out the world is
Speaker 1: fascinated by what you've done with your life. Why do
Speaker 1: you think that is? Is that people love chimpanzees or
Speaker 1: like the dedication you've shown, or they just admire your
Speaker 1: courage to do this. Why do you think you're so beloved?
Speaker 2: I think you should ask somebody else. I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 1: We're here for.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean some people
Speaker 2: are fascinated by the chimp's basically children. Some people love
Speaker 2: it that I was a woman. I think of myself
Speaker 2: as a human. I don't care about the male female bit.
Speaker 1: Really Okay, so you think a man could have done
Speaker 1: this better than you did this?
Speaker 2: No, well, there are amazing male people study apes. But
Speaker 2: it just happened. It was me.
Speaker 1: What would you like young girls to learn about what
Speaker 1: they can do? And how would you suggest they follow
Speaker 1: what you've done?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say that they all should be told
Speaker 2: what my mother told me. If there's something you really
Speaker 2: want to do, then you have to work really hard,
Speaker 2: take advantage of every opportunity, and if you don't give up,
Speaker 2: hopefully you find a way. But for all of us,
Speaker 2: it's the main message of roots and shoes, which, by
Speaker 2: the way, I didn't tell you. It's now in sixty
Speaker 2: eight countries around the world we have ambush. We had
Speaker 2: members in kindergarten, even a few in preschool, but kindergarten,
Speaker 2: university and more and more adults like the staff of
Speaker 2: a big corporation like senior citizens. And the main message
Speaker 2: is every single one of us makes some impact on
Speaker 2: the planet every single day, and we get to choose
Speaker 2: what impact do we make.
Speaker 1: So have you ever been to Washington, DC? Much? If
Speaker 1: you go there much?
Speaker 2: Oh, I've done so much love being there, a fine
Speaker 2: meeting with right now, I haven't been doing any lo bit.
Speaker 1: So do you find meeting with members of Congress uplifting her?
Speaker 2: Not so much defense who I meet?
Speaker 1: Most of your life you devoted to the study of
Speaker 1: chimpanzees to make sure that they're better understood and better
Speaker 1: appreciate it. But in recent years at the institute, the
Speaker 1: Jane Goodall Institute, and what is that design.
Speaker 2: To do well? That started in nineteen seventy seven, when
Speaker 2: by then I had a little research station and four
Speaker 2: of my students were kidnapped and everything shut down, and
Speaker 2: so some friends of mine said, well, let's start an
Speaker 2: institute so that this research can carry on. Bless them.
Speaker 2: So that was nineteen seventy seven, and it was set
Speaker 2: up to study, conserve chimpanzees and other animals and educate
Speaker 2: and it's developed since then. So it's you know, we've
Speaker 2: got twenty seven Jane Goodall institutes around the world. And
Speaker 2: then I realized at some point that people living the
Speaker 2: African people living in and around chimpanzee habitats right across
Speaker 2: Africa were struggling to vibe. There was crippling poverty, lack
Speaker 2: of health and education, moving deeper into the forest, being
Speaker 2: exposed to diseases like ebola and the HIV from the
Speaker 2: chimpanzees and vice versa. And I suddenly it hit me.
Speaker 2: If we don't help these people to find ways of
Speaker 2: making a living without destroying their environment, we can't conservation
Speaker 2: will work.
Speaker 1: So you've devoted a large part of the Good All
Speaker 1: Institute to climate change and conservation. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely? Well right now? I mean, you know we
Speaker 2: face these two existential threats, don't we, Climate change, which
Speaker 2: has changed where the patterns all around the world. We
Speaker 2: had the flooding yesterday, you know, day before years today,
Speaker 2: and then loss of biodiversity. And what people don't realize
Speaker 2: we are not the only part of the natural world,
Speaker 2: even though with our cell phone and virtual reality we
Speaker 2: feel divorced from nature, but we depend on it for food, water, clothing, everything.
Speaker 2: But what we depend on is healthy ecosystems and an
Speaker 2: ecosystem is this magical mix of plants and animals, each
Speaker 2: one with a role to play. So if you think
Speaker 2: of it as a beautiful tapestry, every time a species
Speaker 2: goes from that tapestry, it's like pulling a thread until
Speaker 2: the tapestry hangs in tatus and then the ecosystem will collapse.
Speaker 2: And it's happening.
Speaker 1: You have a fairly exhausting schedule. You're going from event
Speaker 1: to event, But how frequently do you get back to
Speaker 1: Africa every couple of weeks. You're back there now twice.
Speaker 2: A year because my family is there, partly because I
Speaker 2: need to go to Goombi, but we also have a
Speaker 2: big sanctuary for orphan chims in Congo. We have another
Speaker 2: one in South Africa. There's one that we basically are
Speaker 2: in Bolb within Uganda, and I need to go back.
Speaker 2: I need to, you know, give support to the stuff
Speaker 2: there Gombe. I go back, and luckily my family, my
Speaker 2: grandchildren can come with me, So it's time.
Speaker 1: But if you go back to Gombe now and you
Speaker 1: want to look for some chimpanzees, would you find some
Speaker 1: that you already knew you and would they recognize you?
Speaker 2: Still there is just one mother and her daughter that
Speaker 2: I knew. And you know, since I only go back
Speaker 2: like three or four days at gonna be at a time,
Speaker 2: I don't know the new ones. I don't know the
Speaker 2: children and the young ones, but Gremlin I knew intimately.
Speaker 1: You are public information. Eighty nine years old, is that right?
Speaker 2: Eighty eight nine?
Speaker 1: Yeah, eighty nine. Okay. It's a lot of people when
Speaker 1: they turn eighty nine, they want to kind of chill
Speaker 1: out a little bit and relax, maybe spend time with
Speaker 1: the grandkids or something, great grandkids. You're not slowing down
Speaker 1: any at all. You're not. You're sitting on the beach anywhere,
Speaker 1: going to Palm Beach or something.
Speaker 2: Well, how can I because you know this may sound
Speaker 2: weird to you, but I truly feel that I was
Speaker 2: put on this planet with a mission, and right now,
Speaker 2: the mission is to give people hope, because if you
Speaker 2: don't have hope, you give up, you become up a
Speaker 2: petic and do nothing, and then we're doomed, if our
Speaker 2: young people, we're doomed. So you know, Okay, So I
Speaker 2: don't know how many years I have left, but when
Speaker 2: I was young, I had this time, and now I'm
Speaker 2: coming up towards whenever the end is. Could be one year,
Speaker 2: could be five years, could be ten, could be twenty.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'm lifting closer, and so I
Speaker 2: have to speed up because there is so much I
Speaker 2: still have to do.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen