A Conversation with Jane Goodall

Dr. Jane Goodall is known as the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, but she’s much more than that. Jane is a force of and for nature. She redefined what it means to be a human with purpose. Jane went into the forest to study the remarkable lives of chimpanzees, and she came out of the forest to save all of mankind. She developed a breakthrough approach to species conservation that improves the lives of people, animals, and the environment by honoring their interconnectedness. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute and in 1991 she founded Roots & Shoots, an organization that brings together youth from preschool to university age to work on environmental conservation and humanitarian issues. She is a force of compassion for all living things, and I am honored to call her my friend.

RICHARD: Hi, wonderful Jane!

JANE: Hello!!!! Long time.

RICHARD: Are you at home in London? 

JANE: Yes, I’m at home. I will go to Davos early tomorrow to give a speech.

RICHARD: It’s 9:30 p.m. in London, on a Friday night. Do you have whiskey?

JANE: Would you like me to get one? It’s probably a good idea! [Jane reaches off-camera and gets a glass of whiskey.] I am happy to see you again. It’s been a long time.

RICHARD: I hear you’re coming to Los Angeles soon?

JANE: Yes, I am! That’s where my first birthday party of my 90th year is going to be.

RICHARD: Your 90th birthday! Yet you’re the youngest person I know. You never ever stop. You have so much energy. Where do you get that from?

JANE: Okay, this may sound weird and spooky, but I just feel I was born with a mission. I think we all have a role to play. Some people find it, some people don’t. But because I have that role to play, I need to honor my mission.

RICHARD: “Finding your purpose” is such a stress for many people. Do you think people are born with a mission? Or do they learn it? 

JANE: I think we’re all born with it, and some people find it, some people discover it. 

RICHARD: The “purpose” talk can get so serious. While you do so many important things, you always have a sense of humor about it all. I don’t think people understand how funny you are and how much life you have — and how fun it is to be with you.

JANE: Yes, because if I couldn’t have fun and couldn’t be silly, I wouldn’t carry on. I couldn’t be just serious. It wouldn’t work. And there’s a lot of work to do.

RICHARD: Yes, there is! As you know, I read your book Seeds of Hope on Mount Everest, and it was the inspiration for why I contacted you. And then YOU were a big reason why I started Flamingo. When I read that book, I thought you were in the forest or the garden all day long, living out in the world. It wasn’t until I went to Vienna to the Jane Goodall Institute meeting a few years ago that I realized . . . HOLY SHIT, you’re a business person! You have a HUGE team of people around the world. Offices in dozens of countries. How did you find the tools to run a big team like that? Do you think that’s something you were also born with or did you just learn that as things progressed?

JANE: It just gradually happened. There was no plan. One thing led to another and eventually JGI (Jane Goodall Institute) grew. It’s interesting, really. I’m speaking to you from the house I grew up in. The house where, at age ten, I decided I was going to go to Africa and live with the animals and write books about them. Everybody said it was impossible. Everyone doubted me — except my mother, which just shows the importance of supporting your children’s dreams.

RICHARD: I love that.

JANE: So I saved up money and I got to Africa. Louis Leakey offered me the chance to study chimpanzees. I would have studied any animal — but chimpanzees are most like us. The scientific attitude at the time was that humans were totally separate from the rest of the animals. We were unique. We were the only ones who had personality, mind, and emotion. But I’d learned from my dog that this wasn’t true.

RICHARD: Rusty!

JANE: Rusty, yes. He showed me that animals had feelings. Science has gradually changed and we now understand that even octopuses have incredible intelligence and personality.

RICHARD: Have you read The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird? 

JANE: No, I haven’t.

RICHARD: The book documents scientific experiments that claim to reveal the ability of plants to have feelings and communicate. The first chapter talks about plants, someone walking into a room with a pair of scissors, and the electrodes on the leaves of the plants light up when the plants sense this danger. Is that something you’ve witnessed?

JANE: I haven’t witnessed it with plants. But I love reading about it. I know plants communicate with either pheromones in the air or the microfungi in their roots. They communicate through the forest. I’ve learned all about that. I love it. 

RICHARD: Me too.

JANE: It gets a bit difficult. When I learned about factory farms I decided I couldn’t eat meat anymore. It started to represent a painful death. Then I learned about dairy farming and eggs and broilers. And I thought I couldn’t eat any of that. So then I became vegan. Now if we can’t eat plants because of their feelings, that may be the end of humanity, right? [Laughs.] So we’ve got to draw the line somewhere!

RICHARD: As you said, one of your biggest contributions was to establish that animals have feelings. What other truths from the natural world have we been slow to adopt? What else is surprising us that we don’t know?

JANE: There’s a hell of a lot out there that we don’t know. The fact that there’s so much out there that’s still mysterious, to me that’s absolutely fascinating. I try to live each day learning some new little fact.

RICHARD: You are able to do that because you are out in the world. And it started with your great adventure to Africa. Today, we’re all spending so much time behind our screens. Do you think it’s getting harder for people to have the ability to feel things?

JANE: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve divorced ourselves from nature. I look at how my grandchildren are on their iPhones — googling, skyping all the time. You even see kids in buses sitting next to each other, but they’re not talking.

RICHARD: Yes. Or two people at a restaurant staring into their phones . . .

JANE: Connection with nature is important for our physical and psychological health. In fact, if you go to Japan, doctors will prescribe time in nature. 

RICHARD: Do you police your own screen time?

JANE: I don’t even have an iPhone. 

RICHARD: Amazing.

JANE: I mean, I’ve got my laptop and I spend much too long on emails, but that’s how I communicate, at least it’s quicker than writing. But when I’m on the road, when I’m just going places, no, I don’t have an iPhone. I’m not online all the time. I don’t do social media. None of that.

RICHARD: You go to Davos tomorrow, and then where are you going?

JANE: Davos, then UAE, then Qatar, then Tanzania, then South Africa, and then a few lectures in London, a bit of time at home. Then I’m back in America.

RICHARD: You probably travel more than anyone I know. Are there some universal truths that you notice?

JANE: Yes, a universal truth today: people are losing hope. 

RICHARD: Losing hope?

JANE: We’ve got two horrible wars, suffering, refugees in misery. We’ve got conflicts across Africa and parts of Asia and in Eastern Europe. It’s a pretty grim world.

RICHARD: I’ve heard you say previously that you’re hopeful because of the youth and because of their hopes for the future, but I believe sometimes that hope is a lazy term. Hope doesn’t imply action. When someone says, “I hope it’s gonna be good,” it’s a false hope. People who say they’re just hoping for the best really annoy me.

JANE: I’ve now come to the realization that symbolically, humans are at the entrance of a very, very long and very, very dark tunnel. And right at the end is a little star shining. That’s hope. But it’s no good sitting at the mouth of the tunnel and saying, “I hope that star comes here soon.” No! We have to roll up our sleeves. We have to climb over, under, and work around all the obstacles. There are many things that lie between us and that star: climate change, loss of biodiversity, industrial farming with chemical pesticides and herbicides, poverty, all the terrible things that are going on in the world. But the good news is that there are people working on every single one of these problems. The sad thing is that they’re working in silos.

RICHARD: What do you mean?

JANE: To give a very simple example, someone says, “We’ve closed down this coal mine so all those emissions are no longer going to increase greenhouse gases.” But because we’ve thought in a silo, we haven’t thought about the consequences of closing down the coal mine, which is hundreds of people losing their jobs. If we were thinking holistically, we would contact those people. There are groups of people who teach people who are losing their jobs new ways of making a living because their industry has closed down. We can work together earlier and be more strategic. Hope is about coordinated action with a variety of people. 

RICHARD: Yeah. It’s not just wishful thinking. One of the things I’ve witnessed is your ability to make relationships and grow them. I’ve seen you charm skeptics and difficult people. Do you have any advice on that?

JANE: You need to nurture a relationship. Try to grow it. You need to feed a relationship if it’s going to be a two-way thing. Say you meet somebody — let’s say, for example, a climate change denier — somebody who says the climate is not caused by human activity. We now see the results of climate change, but there are still people who don’t want to admit that humans have created this problem.

RICHARD: I think several of them are running for president here in America right now.

JANE: Exactly, but let’s not go into that awful mess. So, if you want to change somebody’s mind. No good arguing with them. It’s no good pointing a finger. It’s no good being aggressive. People have to change from within. So if I’m talking to somebody, I try to find something that links us. Maybe we both love dogs. Maybe we both have grandchildren. Tell a story to try to reach their heart. Because it’s only by reaching their heart that you can change somebody’s mind. 

JANE: I’ll tell you a wonderful story. I was talking to a group of CEOs in Singapore, and afterward, one of them came up to me and said, “Jane, for the last eight years, I’ve been really, really trying to get my company to be more ethical. Ethical in the way we source our supplies. Ethical in the supply chain. Ethical in the way we treat our customers.” He said, “There are three reasons for wanting to change. First, seeing that natural resources are being depleted faster than nature can replenish them. Second, consumer pressure — people are now beginning to demand products that haven’t harmed the environment and that haven’t become cheap because of unfair wages. But what tipped the balance for me was my little girl. She is eight years old. She came back from school one day and she said, ‘Daddy they’re telling me that what you’re doing is hurting the environment. That isn’t true, is it, Daddy? Because It’s my planet.’” That’s the kind of story. You have to reach the heart.

RICHARD: Are you optimistic about people changing their ways around climate fast enough?

JANE: Yes, because of Roots & Shoots. Because all the young people we know. Richard, we’re in seventy countries. Seventy! And we have young people from kindergarten through university and more and more adult groups forming their own Roots & Shoots projects to fix things locally.

RICHARD: Do you think that the young Jane at twenty years old would have imagined that she’d have people in seventy countries doing all that work?

JANE: Of course not!

RICHARD: Is there anything that Jane at ninety would tell Jane at twenty?

JANE: No, because if I told Jane at twenty what Jane would become, Jane at twenty would have said, “Okay. I’m not going to go there.” She would have gone into something else. I was very shy and horrified when I began to be recognized in airports and stuff like that. Terrified.

RICHARD: That’s so interesting. What pulled you out of your shyness?

JANE: I suddenly realized that if I wanted to spread a message about the importance of trying to protect the environment, I would be recognized when I do it. So I went around with little brochures the size of a business card. I would give these things out when people recognized me in airports. I would smile at them and they would usually burst into tears! It’s quite funny — everybody cries when they meet me!

RICHARD: Do you remember when someone first recognized you?

JANE: It was in Santa Fe, and I was walking around one of the markets. A couple came up to me, and the woman asked if I was Jane Goodall. I said, “yes.” And this woman said, “It can’t be true.” She asked, “Can I touch you?” and I thought, What the hell is this? And so I said we could shake hands. That was the beginning of it. That was when I realized that something strange was going on, something I never planned, never anticipated, and didn’t want. From that moment I tried to hide from people. I put sunglasses on. I tried to make myself look different. They still recognized me, and that’s when I thought, Okay. I’ve got to use this to grow the mission.

RICHARD: Do you get nervous now when you talk to a huge theater of strangers or if someone comes up and asks if they can touch you? [Laughs.] Or are you immune to it now? 

JANE: I’m not immune to it. I am moved by it because it means I am doing my job. There are two Janes. There is this Jane — the one who is me, the one who is talking to you. The same one who has fun, who’s silly, here in the home where I grew up. And the other Jane is the icon probably created by National Geographic and Discovery and all that stuff. The “real me” Jane has to work quite hard to keep up with the icon Jane. So that’s the only way I can deal with this thing that’s happened to me. Some people seek fame. They crave it. I never wanted it. But since I have it, I must use it.

RICHARD: You travel so much, and you work so much. Do you get lonely?

JANE: Lonely? No, I tremendously value my alone time. I have too much around me.

RICHARD: Do you have any rituals? Small moments that you love?

JANE: The moments I love most are when I’m on my own. When I’m traveling people offer me such kind hospitality and ask me to come and stay with them, but I try to avoid that. I love going to hotels because I can close the door and be on my own. It’s so very important.

RICHARD: Right now you’re in the house you grew up in with the big birch tree, right?

JANE: Yes, it is home. I’ve got all my memories from childhood. They’re all here. People think that I love Gombe the best. 

RICHARD: I thought so, too.

JANE: I do love the old Gombe, but the old Gombe has gone. There are so many tourists now. It’s not the same. I was incredibly lucky to experience Gombe then. I keep it in my heart — when it was me and the chimps. How many people can have an experience like that? It was amazing, and I do not take it for granted.

RICHARD: Do you have a heavy heart when you think about it today?

JANE: No, because we’re protecting the chimps and protecting their environment. We’re creating corridors, and chimps are coming in from outside to increase the gene pool. I’m actually very happy about what’s happening. It’s just not the Gombe I knew.

RICHARD: Do you remember what you wrote about seeds in Seeds of Hope? It’s one of the stories in that book that I love most.

JANE: It’s what led to Roots & Shoots! Seeds can stay dormant for up to two thousand years and still germinate. And that little tiny thing, that seems so weak, has such a powerful magic life inside of it. A little seed’s roots can work through rocks to reach the water and its shoots can break through brick walls to reach the sun. It’s amazing. It’s magic. 

RICHARD: And such a great metaphor because they have every possible setback. Every reason they wouldn’t succeed. But yet we’re surrounded by forests. They are souvenirs of miracles.

JANE: Yeah. Even though the world is bleak today, we’re surrounded by little miracles and we’re surrounded by people who tackle the impossible and succeed. We are surrounded by amazing projects where people are bringing back life and animals to places we’ve destroyed. And we’re seeing movements like regenerative farming and small family farms and moving away from these terrible industrial farms. Everywhere I look I see signs of hope. The problem is the media is all doom and gloom because they think that makes news, but we need to know more about the amazing people and the amazing projects around the world. That gives us hope when we read about them. And that’s my job. 

RICHARD: To talk about these stories?

JANE: I mean today, for example, I spoke this morning to forty-eight young people from fourteen African countries who all came together in Zanzibar to share Roots & Shoots stories, to share their stories, to inspire each other, to encourage each other, and to go back to their country and share this enthusiasm. They realize they’re not alone. And now we are in seventy countries, Richard!

RICHARD: Do you enjoy speaking in front of people? 

JANE: I don’t know where it came from, but I was born with the gift to communicate, first through writing, but I was so scared of speaking. I was terrified during my first talk. I thought I was going to die. When I knew I had to do it, I sort of made a vow to myself — I will never read a speech.

RICHARD: Really? Is that still true? 

JANE: I try to speak from my heart wherever I am. All over Europe, all over Japan, all over South Korea, all over the Americas. Everywhere I go now. The audience is always just extraordinary. I mean, especially in Europe, they start applauding and they go on and on and I’m thinking, could you please stop clapping! [Laughs.] You have to put everything you have into your talk, and then you get this incredible energy back.

RICHARD: Amazing. I have one last question for you. The book is called The Guide to Becoming Alive, and it’s about lessons from the garden. So I wanted to ask what you think it means to be fully alive. What does that mean for you?

JANE: I would say we need to understand what our life means. Are we here for a reason? Or are we just born and we just have to struggle through and that’s it? I believe every person has a role to play. To me, every individual matters and has a reason to be here.

RICHARD: Amazing. I love that. God bless Jane Goodall. We send you so much love. Now go to sleep. And dream of Rusty.