Every day you live, you impact the planet

Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall says that humanity's survival depends on conservation of the natural world. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, she tells the story of her formative days working with chimpanzees, how she transformed from a revered naturalist into a dedicated activist and how she's empowering communities around the world to save natural habitats.

Chris Anderson: Dr. Jane Goodall, welcome.

Jane Goodall: Thank you,

and I think, you know,
we couldn't have a complete interview

unless people know Mr. H is with me,

because everybody knows Mr. H.

CA: Hello, Mr. H.

In your TED Talk 17 years ago,

you warned us about the dangers
of humans crowding out the natural world.

Is there any sense in which you feel

that the current pandemic
is kind of, nature striking back?

JG: It's very, very clear
that these zoonotic diseases,

like the corona and HIV/AIDS

and all sorts of other diseases
that we catch from animals,

that's partly to do
with destruction of the environment,

which, as animals lose habitat,
they get crowded together

and sometimes that means
that a virus from a reservoir species,

where it's lived harmoniously
for maybe hundreds of years,

jumps into a new species,

then you also get animals being pushed
into closer contact with humans.

And sometimes one of these animals
that has caught a virus can --

you know, provides the opportunity
for that virus to jump into people

and create a new disease, like COVID-19.

And in addition to that,

we are so disrespecting animals.

We hunt them,

we kill them, we eat them,

we traffic them,

we send them off
to the wild-animal markets

in Asia,

where they're in terrible,
cramped conditions, in tiny cages,

with people being contaminated
with blood and urine and feces,

ideal conditions for a virus
to spill from an animal to an animal,

or an animal to a person.

CA: I'd love to just dip
backwards in time for a bit,

because your story is so extraordinary.

I mean, despite the arguably
even more sexist attitudes of the 1960s,

somehow you were able to break through

and become one of the world's
leading scientists,

discovering this astonishing
series of facts about chimpanzees,

such as their tool use and so much more.

What was it about you, do you think,

that allowed you to make
such a breakthrough?

JG: Well, the thing is,
I was born loving animals,

and the most important thing was,
I had a very supportive mother.

She didn't get mad when she found
earthworms in my bed,

she just said they better be
in the garden.

And she didn't get mad
when I disappeared for four hours

and she called the police,
and I was sitting in a hen house,

because nobody would tell me
where the hole was where the egg came out.

I had no dream of being a scientist,

because women didn't do
that sort of thing.

In fact, there weren't any man
doing it back then, either.

And everybody laughed at me except Mom,

who said, "If you really want this,
you're going to have to work awfully hard,

take advantage of every opportunity,

if you don't give up,
maybe you'll find a way."

CA: And somehow, you were able to kind of,
earn the trust of chimpanzees

in the way that no one else had.

Looking back, what were the most
exciting moments that you discovered

or what is it that people
still don't get about chimpanzees?

JG: Well, the thing is,
you say, "See things nobody else had,

get their trust."

Nobody else had tried.

Quite honestly.

So, basically, I used the same techniques

that I had to study the animals
around my home when I was a child.

Just sitting, patiently,

not trying to get too close too quickly,

but it was awful, because the money
was only for six months.

I mean, you can imagine
how difficult to get money

for a young girl with no degree,

to go and do something as bizarre
as sitting in a forest.

And you know, finally,

we got money for six months
from an American philanthropist,

and I knew with time
I'd get the chimps' trust,

but did I have time?

And weeks became months
and then finally, after about four months,

one chimpanzee began to lose his fear,

and it was he that
on one occasion I saw --

I still wasn't really close,
but I had my binoculars --

and I saw him using and making tools
to fish for termites.

And although I wasn't terribly surprised,

because I've read about things
captive chimps could do --

but I knew that science believed

that humans, and only humans,
used and made tools.

And I knew how excited
[Dr. Louis] Leakey would be.

And it was that observation

that enabled him to go
to the National Geographic,

and they said, "OK, we'll continue
to support the research,"

and they sent Hugo van Lawick,
the photographer-filmmaker,

to record what I was seeing.

So a lot of scientists
didn't want to believe the tool-using.

In fact, one of them said
I must have taught the chimps.

(Laughter)

Since I couldn't get near them,
it would have been a miracle.

But anyway, once they saw Hugo's film

and that with all my descriptions
of their behavior,

the scientists had to start
changing their minds.

CA: And since then,
numerous other discoveries

that placed chimpanzees much closer
to humans than people cared to believe.

I think I saw you say at one point
that they have a sense of humor.

How have you seen that expressed?

JG: Well, you see it
when they're playing games,

and there's a bigger one
playing with a little one,

and he's trailing a vine around a tree.

And every time the little one
is about to catch it,

the bigger one pulls it away,

and the little one starts crying

and the big one starts laughing.

So, you know.

CA: And then, Jane, you observed
something much more troubling,

which was these instances
of chimpanzee gangs,

tribes, groups, being brutally
violent to each other.

I'm curious how you process that.

And whether it made you, kind of,

I don't know, depressed about us,
we're close to them,

did it make you feel
that violence is irredeemably

part of all the great apes, somehow?

JG: Well, it obviously is.

And my first encounter
with human, what I call evil,

was the end of the war

and the pictures from the Holocaust.

And you know, that really shocked me.

That changed who I was.

I was 10, I think, at the time.

And when the chimpanzees,

when I realized they have this
dark, brutal side,

I thought they were like us but nicer.

And then I realized
they're even more like us

than I had thought.

And at that time, in the early '70s,

it was very strange,

aggression, there was a big thing

about, is aggression innate or learned.

And it became political.

And it was, I don't know,
it was a very strange time,

and I was coming out, saying,

"No, I think aggression is definitely

part of our inherited
repertoire of behaviors."

And I asked a very respected scientist
what he really thought,

because he was coming out
on the clean slate,

aggression is learned,

and he said, "Jane, I'd rather not talk
about what I really think."

That was a big shock
as far as science was concerned for me.

CA: I was brought up to believe a world
of all things bright and beautiful.

You know, numerous beautiful films
of butterflies and bees and flowers,

and you know, nature
as this gorgeous landscape.

And many environmentalists
often seem to take the stance,

"Yes, nature is pure,
nature is beautiful, humans are bad,"

but then you have the kind of
observations that you see,

when you actually look
at any part of nature in more detail,

you see things to be
terrified by, honestly.

What do you make of nature,
how do you think of it,

how should we think of it?

JG: Nature is, you know,

I mean, you think of the whole
spectrum of evolution,

and there's something about going
to a pristine place,

and Africa was very pristine
when I was young.

And there were animals everywhere.

And I never liked the fact
that lions killed,

they have to, I mean, that's what they do,

if they didn't kill animals,
they would die.

And the big difference
between them and us, I think,

is that they do what they do
because that's what they have to do.

And we can plan to do things.

Our plans are very different.

We can plan to cut down a whole forest,

because we want to sell the timber,

or because we want to build
another shopping mall,

something like that.

So our destruction of nature
and our warfare,

we're capable of evil
because we can sit comfortably

and plan the torture of somebody far away.

That's evil.

Chimpanzees have a sort of primitive war,

and they can be very aggressive,

but it's of the moment.

It's how they feel.

It's response to an emotion.

CA: So your observation
of the sophistication of chimpanzees

doesn't go as far as what
some people would want to say

is the sort of the human superpower,

of being able to really simulate
the future in our minds in great detail

and make long-term plans.

And act to encourage each other
to achieve those long-term plans.

That that feels, even to someone
who spent so much time with chimpanzees,

that feels like a fundamentally
different skill set

that we just have to take
responsibility for

and use much more wisely than we do.

JG: Yes, and I personally think,

I mean, there's a lot
of discussion about this,

but I think it's a fact that we developed
the way of communication

that you and I are using.

And because we have words,

I mean, animal communication
is way more sophisticated

than we used to think.

And chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans

can learn human sign language of the Deaf.

But we sort of grow up speaking
whatever language it is.

So I can tell you about things
that you've never heard of.

And a chimpanzee couldn't do that.

And we can teach our children
about abstract things.

And chimpanzees couldn't do that.

So yes, chimpanzees can do
all sorts of clever things,

and so can elephants and so can crows
and so can octopuses,

but we design rockets
that go off to another planet

and little robots taking photographs,

and we've designed this extraordinary way
of you and me talking

in our different parts of the world.

When I was young, when I grew up,

there was no TV,
there were no cell phones,

there was no computers.

It was such a different world,

I had a pencil, pen
and notebook, that was it.

CA: So just going back
to this question about nature,

because I think about this a lot,

and I struggle with this, honestly.

So much of your work,
so much of so many people who I respect,

is about this passion for trying
not to screw up the natural world.

So is it possible, is it healthy,
is it essential, perhaps,

to simultaneously accept
that many aspects of nature

are terrifying,

but also, I don't know, that it's awesome,

and that some of the awesomeness
comes from its potential to be terrifying

and that it is also just
breathtakingly beautiful,

and that we cannot be ourselves,
because we are part of nature,

we cannot be whole

unless we somehow embrace it
and are part of it?

Help me with the language, Jane,
on how that relationship should be.

JG: Well, I think one of the problems is,
you know, as we developed our intellect,

and we became better and better

at modifying the environment
for our own use,

and creating fields and growing crops

where it used to be forest or woodland,

and you know, we won't go into that now,

but we have this ability to change nature.

And as we've moved more
into towns and cities,

and relied more on technology,

many people feel so divorced
from the natural world.

And there's hundreds,
thousands of children

growing up in inner cities,

where there basically isn't any nature,

which is why this movement now
to green our cities is so important.

And you know, they've done experiments,

I think it was in Chicago,
I'm not quite sure,

and there were various empty lots

in a very violent part of town.

So in some of those areas
they made it green,

they put trees and flowers and things,
shrubs in these vacant lots.

And the crime rate went right down.

So then of course,
they put trees in the other half.

So it just shows, and also,

there have been studies done
showing that children

really need green nature
for good psychological development.

But we are, as you say, part of nature

and we disrespect it, as we are,

and that is so terrible for our children

and our children's children,

because we rely on nature
for clean air, clean water,

for regulating climate and rainfall.

Look what we've done,
look at the climate crisis.

That's us. We did that.

CA: So a little over 30 years ago,

you made this shift from scientist mainly
to activist mainly, I guess.

Why?

JG: Conference in 1986,
scientific one, I'd got my PhD by then

and it was to find out
how chimp behavior differed, if it did,

from one environment to another.

There were six study sites across Africa.

So we thought, let’s bring
these scientists together

and explore this,

which was fascinating.

But we also had a session on conservation

and a session on conditions
in some captive situations

like medical research.

And those two sessions
were so shocking to me.

I went to the conference a a scientist,

and I left as an activist.

I didn't make the decision,
something happened inside me.

CA: So you spent the last 34 years

sort of tirelessly campaigning
for a better relationship

between people and nature.

What should that relationship look like?

JG: Well, you know, again you come up
with all these problems.

People have to have space to live.

But I think the problem is

that we've become,
in the affluent societies,

too greedy.

I mean, honestly, who needs
four houses with huge grounds?

And why do we need
yet another shopping mall?

And so on and so on.

So we are looking
at short-term economic benefit,

money has become a sort of god to worship,

as we lose all spiritual connection
with the natural world.

And so we're looking for short-term
monetary gain, or power,

rather than the health of the planet

and the future of our children.

We don't seem to care about that anymore.

That's why I'll never stop fighting.

CA: I mean, in your work
specifically on chimpanzee conservation,

you've made it practice
to put people at the center of that,

local people, to engage them.

How has that worked

and do you think that's an essential idea

if we're to succeed
in protecting the planet?

JG: You know, after that
famous conference,

I thought, well, I must learn more
about why chimps are vanishing in Africa

and what's happening to the forest.

So I got a bit of money together
and went out to visit six range countries.

And learned a lot about the problems
faced by chimps, you know,

hunting for bushmeat
and the live animal trade

and caught in snares

and human populations growing
and needing more land

for their crops and their cattle
and their villages.

But I was also learning about the plight
faced by so many people.

The absolute poverty,
the lack of health and education,

the degradation of the land.

And it came to a head when I flew over
the tiny Gombe National Park.

It had been part of this equatorial
forest belt right across Africa

to the west coast,

and in 1990,

it was just this little island of forest,
just tiny national park.

All around, the hills were bare.

And that's when it hit me.

If we don't do something

to help the people find ways of living

without destroying their environment,

we can't even try to save the chimps.

So the Jane Goodall Institute
began this program "Take Care,"

we call it "TACARE."

And it's our method
of community-based conservation,

totally holistic.

And we've now put the tools
of conservation

into the hand of the villagers,

because most Tanzanian wild chimps
are not in protected areas,

they're just in the village
forest reserves.

And so, they now go and measure
the health of their forest.

They've understood now

that protecting the forest
isn't just for wildlife,

it's their own future.

That they need the forest.

And they're very proud.

The volunteers go to workshops,

they learn how to use smartphones,

they learn how to upload
into platform and the cloud.

And so it's all transparent.

And the trees have come back,

there's no bare hills anymore.

They agreed to make
a buffer zone around Gombe,

so the chimps have more forest
than they did in 1990.

They're opening up corridors of forest

to link the scattered chimp groups
so that you don't get too much inbreeding.

So yes, it's worked,
and it's in six other countries now.

Same thing.

CA: I mean, you've been this extraordinary
tireless voice, all around the world,

just traveling so much,

speaking everywhere,
inspiring people everywhere.

How on earth do you find the energy,

you know, the fire to do that,

because that is exhausting to do,

every meeting with lots of people,

it is just physically exhausting,

and yet, here you are, still doing it.

How are you doing this, Jane?

JG: Well, I suppose, you know,
I'm obstinate, I don't like giving up,

but I'm not going to let
these CEOs of big companies

who are destroying the forests,

or the politicians who are unraveling
all the protections that were put in place

by previous presidents,

and you know who I'm talking about.

And you know, I'll go on fighting,

I care about, I'm passionate
about the wildlife.

I'm passionate about the natural world.

I love forests, it hurts me
to see them damaged.

And I care passionately about children.

And we're stealing their future.

And I'm not going to give up.

So I guess I'm blessed
with good genes, that's a gift,

and the other gift,
which I discovered I had,

was communication,

whether it's writing or speaking.

And so, you know,

if going around like this wasn't working,

but every time I do a lecture,

people come up and say,

"Well, I had given up,
but you've inspired me,

I promise to do my bit."

And we have our youth program
"Roots and Shoots" now in 65 countries

and growing fast,

all ages,

all choosing projects to help
people, animals, the environment,

rolling up their sleeves
and taking action.

And you know, they look at you
with shining eyes,

wanting to tell Dr. Jane
what they've been doing

to make the world a better place.

How can I let them down?

CA: I mean, as you look
at the planet's future,

what worries you most, actually,

what scares you most about where we're at?

JG: Well, the fact that we have
a small window of time, I believe,

when we can at least start
healing some of the harm

and slowing down climate change.

But it is closing,

and we've seen what happens
with the lockdown around the world

because of COVID-19:

clear skies over cities,

some people breathing clean air
that they've never breathed before

and looking up
at the shining skies at night,

which they've never seen properly before.

And you know,

so what worries me most

is how to get enough people,

people understand,
but they're not taking action,

how to get enough people to take action?

CA: National Geographic just launched
this extraordinary film about you,

highlighting your work over six decades.

It's titled "Jane Goodall: The Hope."

So what is the hope, Jane?

JG: Well, the hope,

my greatest hope
is all these young people.

I mean, in China,
people will come up and say,

"Well, of course I care
about the environment,

I was in 'Roots and Shoots'
in primary school."

And you know, we have "Roots and Shoots"
just hanging on to the values

and they're so enthusiastic
once they know the problems

and they're empowered to take action,

they are clearing the streams,
removing invasive species humanely.

And they have so many ideas.

And then there's, you know,
this extraordinary intellect of ours.

We're beginning to use it
to come up with technology

that really will help us
to live in greater harmony,

and in our individual lives,

let's think about the consequences
of what we do each day.

What do we buy, where did it come from,

how was it made?

Did it harm the environment,
was it cruel to animals?

Is it cheap because of child slave labor?

Make ethical choices.

Which you can't do if you're living
in poverty, by the way.

And then finally, this indomitable spirit

of people who tackle what seems impossible

and won't give up.

You can't give up when you have those ...

But you know, there are things
that I can't fight.

I can't fight corruption.

I can't fight military
regimes and dictators.

So I can only do what I can do,

and if we all do the bits that we can do,

surely that makes a whole
that eventually will win out.

CA: So, last question, Jane.

If there was one idea, one thought,

one seed you could plant
in the minds of everyone watching this,

what would that be?

JG: You know, just remember
that every day you live,

you make an impact on the planet.

You can't help making an impact.

And at least, unless
you're living in extreme poverty,

you have a choice as to what sort
of impact you make.

Even in poverty you have a choice,

but when we are more affluent,
we have a greater choice.

And if we all make ethical choices,

then we start moving towards a world

that will be not quite so desperate
to leave to our great-grandchildren.

That's, I think, something for everybody.

Because a lot of people
understand what's happening,

but they feel helpless and hopeless,
and what can they do,

so they do nothing
and they become apathetic.

And that is a huge danger, apathy.

CA: Dr. Jane Goodall, wow.

I really want to thank you
for your extraordinary life,

for all that you've done

and for spending this time with us now.

Thank you.

JG: Thank you.