Over the years, Mongabay staff and contributors have conducted numerous interviews with Jane Goodall. The following is a recap of her ideas and reflections from these conversations, organized by theme—here’s the full piece.
Gombe and the revolution in science
Goodall overturned assumptions about what separates humans from animals, revealing chimpanzees as tool-makers with emotions, relationships, and even moral complexity. Her patient observation at Gombe helped redraw the boundary between humanity and the rest of nature.
Science and spirituality
She believed science could explain how the world works but not why it matters. The intellect, she said, must be guided by compassion and ethical restraint—a harmony of head and heart without which knowledge becomes dangerous.
Technology, zoos, and compromise
Never a purist, Goodall accepted that imperfect tools could serve good ends. She saw zoos and technology as double-edged—capable of fostering empathy or exploitation—depending on the values that guided their use.
Hope as discipline
Hope, to her, was not wishful thinking but moral duty: the resolve to act despite despair. She warned that pessimism is self-indulgent and insisted that even small efforts, multiplied, can shift the course of the planet.
Youth and Roots & Shoots
Goodall’s faith in young people was boundless. Through Roots & Shoots she encouraged children to see that every action counts, nurturing a generation that asks not whether it is too late, but what can be done next. She often said she wanted her legacy to be this movement—not her discoveries at Gombe or her fame—but the millions of young people carrying forward a sense of agency, compassion, and responsibility for the living world.
Indigenous knowledge and local wisdom
She argued that lasting conservation depends on those who live closest to the land. Indigenous communities, she said, embody an ethic of respect and reciprocity that modern systems ignore at their peril.
A reluctant icon
Fame found her before she sought it. She used the image built by the media—the “two Janes,” as she put it—to draw attention to animals and forests, not herself, turning celebrity into a conduit for empathy and action.
The difference we make
In the end, she taught that every life leaves an imprint. Humanity’s task, she said, is to decide what kind of difference it wishes to make—guided by intellect, humility, and hope that is practiced, not presumed.
Her voice carried moral authority because it was grounded in experience. She had seen forests regenerate, chimpanzees rebound, and young people transform communities. She had also seen destruction and indifference. Her credibility lay in speaking of both, then insisting that the former must prevail.
Her “message of hope” may be the most enduring truth about her. She showed that hope could be learned, practiced, and passed on—one child, one chimpanzee, one forest at a time.
- Jane Goodall quotes: Words from a reluctant global icon
- Jane Goodall: A life of hope and chimpanzees (Mongabay Kids)
- What Jane Goodall showed me about hope
- Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope
- Jane Goodall, primatologist who taught the world to hope, has died at 91
