Good for all

The world is celebrating Earth Day today, to show appreciation for the planet and take valuable steps to support environmental protection. It's also the day to recognise those environmentalists, activists and living legends who've done good deeds for the world.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day this year, National Geographic is to premiere Jane Goodall: The Hope, a documentary honouring the legendary primatologist and wildlife conservationist.

Picking up where National Geographic Documentary Films' 2017 award-winning JANE left off, the two-hour documentary will give viewers even more of an immersive exploration of the world of Goodall, going back in time to the 60s and seeing through chapters of Goodall's journey and on her groundbreaking discoveries in Tanzania researching wild animals, especially chimpanzees. The documentary gives the audience a chance to learn about her activism, the creation of her non-profit organisation the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots programme for the youth generation, as well as seeing how she has become one of the most beloved figures around the world for several decades.

In light of the premiere of Jane Goodall: The Hope in Thailand tonight at 7pm on National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, Life talked with the 86-year-old conservationist recently via phone interview about her life work, childhood years, as well as her opinions on the ongoing pandemic.

Jane Goodall: The Hope. (Photos courtesy of National Geographic)

How are you and how do you deal with the Covid-19 situation nowadays?

Well, I'm in my family home with my sister and her daughter and her daughter's fiance , and two grown grandsons [laughs]. I'm not exactly isolated, but I'm not going out shopping or anything. I'm still trying to work, and trying to create with my team, so that I can continue spreading messages around the world. It's the 16th anniversary of when I arrived at the company, we were all set for a fabulous year of fundraising and celebration. But all of that is on hold until we kind of make up for it, by being out there virtually.

From your perspective of the pandemic events of the past month, do you think there's a key message that people should know?

Well, I know the thing about this pandemic is that we have voted on ourselves. It's been predicted for years and years -- I forget how many. We've had other epidemics. They've all started from viruses, crossing the species barrier from an animal to us. And the reason is that we're destroying the habitat, and also getting crowded together because there's less space for [everyone]. Some of them are coming into conflict and greater contact with people, because they're moving out to try and find food like monkeys and pigs and so forth. Then we're hunting them, eating their meat, trafficking them, sending them around the world. And this pandemic started in the wet markets in China. The HIV epidemic was started by people coming and eating chimpanzees twice in two different parts of Africa. And we've also had epidemics, coming from the factory farms in the Western, world where animals were kept in cruel and confined conditions. So, it's awful that we're getting this: we haven't listened to or learned from previous academics when we go on disrespecting the environment and animals.

Jane Goodall: The Hope. (Photos courtesy of National Geographic)

Do you believe we're facing extinction as a species?

Well, we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life on the planet. I think we're both aligned and the pandemic is actually when many people have woken up. And perhaps it will help us realise that we need to do what I've been begging people to do for years and years and years: respect for the natural world that doesn't really put economic development ahead of protection of the environment. Think about future generations. Make ethical decisions and choices. And if we all get together, and start making little changes in that way, we can turn it around. Unfortunately we have many political leaders around the world. And I fear that the sooner the pandemic is over, they will want to get back to business as usual, as quickly as possible. And the pollution will come back and the destruction of the natural world will come back.

Can you tell us a bit more about your childhood years? Is it true that you found your love for animals through the stories of Tazan and Dr. Dolittle?

I was born loving animals. As a child, I remember I hid in the henhouse in my room when I was four years old, because I wanted to know where the egg came out, and nobody would tell me. And then I read Dr. Dolittle and completely fell in love with Africa. When he took animals back to Africa. And of course he learned to speak animal language and I wanted to do that too. And then I fell in love with Tazan when I was 10. And, you know, all those years I was spending as much time as I could outside, watching the birds and the squirrels with my companion being my dog Rusty.

Did your time working with chimpanzees and studying them teach you anything about humans, other animals and their behaviours?

Yes, indeed, because when I first began studying chimpanzees in the 1960s, I hadn't been to college. I was there to work with [Dr Louis] Leakey and people who study animals, and not only those people studying animals but the world in general. I was told when I went to Cambridge that I couldn't talk about chimpanzees with personalities, minds or emotions, because those were unique to us. And I'd already learned from my dog as a child that that wasn't true. So, because chimpanzees are so like us biologically, I was reporting all that similarity in behaviour. Science has gradually come to realise that we are not alone. And today, we have students who are able to study more the emotions, more the personality. And there's a flurry of interest in intellect, which is not just Tilton Z's and other primates of some elephants and some dolphins but goes right down to birds and even the octopi are incredibly intelligent.

National Geographic

Apart from being a founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, you're running the Roots & Shoots programme. What can you share about doing activism work with young people?

That is my greatest cause, I actually hope, because it started in Tanzania with 12 high school students in 1991. And the main message of every single individual matter is that it has a role to play and makes a difference every single day. Each group of the Roots & Shoots chooses a free project to make the world better for people, animals and the environment. And what they choose will depend on how old they are with kindergarten through university, depending on the country, the culture and the religion. But I used to travel 300 days a year around the world. Right now I'm grounded, of course, but that's what gives me hope, that shows enthusiasm, passion and dedication. And I think what I've been really most keen to do is grow Roots & Shoots. It's now in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

You were featured in this book called In Praise Of Difficult Women: Life Lessons From 29 Heroines Who Dared To Break The Rules, by Karen Karbo. What advice would you give to other difficult women or anyone trying to improve our understanding of the world as you did?

Well, if it's a young person I would definitely encourage them to start to look into a group, because then they'd be with other young people, all wanting to make a difference. I'll repeat what my mother said to me when I wanted to go to Africa and everybody laughed at me. How would I get it? I was just a girl, and Africa is far away, and we didn't have money. She said to me, if it's something you really want to do, you're going to work really, really hard. Take advantage of every opportunity. That would be my advice I give young people.

I was wondering if you might be familiar with a TV crime documentary series called Tiger King, which is about Americans who have private zoos. Do you have any comment about how you feel about wild animals kept in captivity, even if it's with the best of intentions, to preserve them or rescue them?

What I thought when I heard about this series is that I find it very disturbing. Because, you know, large wild animals should not be treated that way. I haven't actually seen that, but I know the chimpanzee, tigers, lions -- they're wild animals and they couldn't be handled. I mean, we have two rescue centres in Africa; chimpanzee mothers have been killed most proportionally. And it comes with very frightened babies, so we have to handle them then. But then gradually they move out into groups, and into very large safe areas, and the same is being done with gorillas and orangutans and all sorts of wild animals when people rescue them. But to keep them as pets, it's wrong. We should not be keeping them as pets, and usually the end is bad. Many people have been [brought to their end] by their pets, especially chimpanzees. So usually the animal at a certain age is sent away and often the ending isn't very nice. So, I suppose I'm going to have to watch that series one day, which everybody is asking me about.