RIP, Jane Goodall

Noted British anthropologist Jane Goodall died yesterday at the age of 91.

Goodall stunned much of the world when she decided to dedicate her life to studying chimpanzees and advocating for wildlife preservation the world over. Many people were shocked that an attractive woman would seemingly separate herself from the modern world and all of it's creature comforts in order to go live in the jungle with chimps.

And yet, she made this choice quite deliberately. Many people also felt inspired by her. She tirelessly advocated for preservation of the wilderness. She also blasted modern humanity' reliance on technology and fixation on creature comforts and the generally destructive to the planet lifestyle which most of us mindlessly adhere to and do not know how to live without.

She tried to warn us:

“It seems these days everybody is so involved with technology that we forget that we’re not only part of the natural world, we’re an animal like all the others,” Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a conservation group, said last week during the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit in NYC. “We’re an animal like all the others. But we depend on it for clean air, water, food, clothing — everything.”  

And yet — “We’re destroying the planet,” she said.

That message about us forgetting that we are part of the ecosystem of the planet is something which I first really understood when one of my favorite authors, Daniel Quinn, said it in one of his books. He said that even when we might feel as far away from "nature" (those quotes was how he emphasized the paradox of our thinking we are separate from this thing called "nature'), whether we are working in our office space or in a mall or at a movie theater, we are still a part of this world's life cycle. We have the same bodily needs and basic functions as other lifeforms. It has not served us well when we seem to mysteriously lose sight of that. Jane Goodall was one of those people who also tried to remind us of this basic truth. Also, that we are not exempt from the ramifications of our inability to understand that and to continue - or even to accelerate - the human activities that are doing so much damage to our planet.

Just lust last week she added a dire warning regarding humanity's destructive activities:

In a separate conversation with the Wall Street Journal last week, Goodall said the problem is the pernicious idea that economic development should come before the environment. In reality, we’re on a planet with finite resources, and if we exhaust them, it could spell our own end. “Humans are not exempt from extinction,” Goodall said in the Wall Street Journal’s podcast, The Journal.

My own memories of her come mostly from documentaries and the occasional news report. However, I actually saw her in person once, albeit from afar. She was there at the Live Earth concert which I attended in the summer of 2007.

She will be remembered as a tireless advocate for the well being of Planet Earth, and for championing true coexistence and a peaceful way of life. 

RIP, Jane Goodall.

Below are the links to two articles. The first one is where I obtained the quotes which I used in the above blog entry:

Listen to Jane Goodall’s final — and urgent — message Her last interviews are essential listening for everyone.  by Benji Jones Oct 1, 2025:

https://www.vox.com/climate/463459/jane-goodall-chimpanzee-final-message

Jane Goodall’s Survival Guide by Anna Russell, September 27, 2021:

The eighty-seven-year-old naturalist knocks around her home on the south coast of England and explains why, despite the floods and fires and melting ice caps, she’s still optimistic about planet Earth.  

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/04/jane-goodalls-survival-guide?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dhfacebook&utm_content=app.dashsocial.com/newyorkermag/library/media/589858886