ZOE CORMIER talks to the renowned chimp expert‚ who has turned her attention to poverty‚ education and forest preservation
Jane Goodall looks out the window‚ eyes fixed on the skyscrapers across the street from her hotel‚ a stone’s throw from the noise‚ traffic‚ billboards and gigantic plasma screens of downtown Toronto. “I hate the waste‚ the noise and the smell [of modern Western cities]‚” she says later.
However‚ despite her aversion‚ the renowned primatologist spends the better part of each year in cities‚ engaged in extensive tours. She was in Toronto this week for meetings‚ fundraising and a lecture.
Dr. Goodall says she also hates having her picture taken. Then smiling and quietly laughing‚ she playfully hides behind the curtains before emerging to have her famous face captured by a photographer.
She may profess distaste‚ but she is no stranger to cameras. In the 1960s‚ she was known‚ derisively‚ as National Geographic’s “cover girl” for the famous portraits of her clad in safari shorts‚ her signature dark blond ponytail trailing down her shoulders.
Since then‚ Dr. Goodall has achieved celebrity status. She is known worldwide for her contributions to our understanding of animal behaviour‚ garnered from her time spent in close proximity with chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park.
She is credited with being the first to discover that chimpanzees can make tools‚ when she observed them peeling the bark off sticks to create rods to “fish” for termites‚ forcing a redefinition of what‚ if anything‚ separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Many of us have been affected by an image of Dr. Goodall sitting quietly among the chimps‚ or making calls with them‚ or even touching the hand of an outstretched‚ furry arm.
Now‚ at the age of 72‚ she no longer spends much time with the chimps. She has turned her attention to much broader issues: poverty‚ education‚ reproductive health and‚ naturally‚ forest conservation.
She spends about 300 days a year touring‚ raising funds for the Jane Goodall Institute. The JGI has projects all over Africa‚ not only for protecting wildlife‚ but also for improving the lives of the people‚ such as water–sanitation projects‚ schools and ecotourism.
“We try to create partnerships with the local people‚” she explains. “You don’t build a fence and say‚ ‘You can’t come in here.’ You need to help people to live better lives. Then you get their goodwill‚ and once you have their goodwill‚ then you can work together for conservation — for the future of the forest‚ the future of the chimps‚ and their own future.”
Take Gombe. Logging has removed nearly all the trees surrounding the park. The loss of the forests is a loss for the people‚ not simply for sentimental reasons‚ but because “crops‚ soil erosion‚ the water table‚ everything is in danger‚” Dr. Goodall says. And the Gombe chimps (fewer than 100) cannot travel to other forested areas‚ leaving them vulnerable to inbreeding.
But Dr. Goodall thinks that her institute may have a solution that will help both the chimps and the people: coffee.
The JGI is setting up organic‚ fair–trade coffee plantations around the park‚ along with roasting stations and the means to transport the beans to foreign markets‚ “so the farmers can get good money‚ decent money for their coffee‚” she says.
Dr. Goodall then hopes to establish “corridors” of forest between Gombe and other reserves nearby‚ coffee plantations flanking the corridors‚ so that the chimps will be able to travel between reserves.
“And chimps don’t like coffee. They won’t go into the crops‚” she says. “That means that if you have coffee plantations buffering the leafy corridors for the chimps‚ you can protect chimps from villagers and villagers from chimps.”
Besides projects like this‚ the JGI is fostering environmental awareness and activism in children worldwide through its Roots & Shoots program‚ which now has more than 7‚500 groups in more than 90 countries.
Dr. Goodall has received countless honours‚ including being named a Dame of the British Empire and a United Nations Messenger for Peace.
You would be hard pressed to find anybody who doubts the sincerity of her efforts or who would deny the importance of her scientific work. But not everyone agrees with her methodology or her opinions.
She has set up a number of sanctuaries in Africa for chimpanzees rescued from captivity. Captive primates are rarely reintroduced into the wild — they usually lack the skills to survive on their own‚ and sometimes carry human diseases they could spread to wild chimps.
Many biologists argue that sanctuaries waste money that should be spent on sustainable wild populations‚ but Dr. Goodall argues that her sanctuaries‚ in fact‚ help wild chimps.
“Local people get to see who these amazing beings are‚” she says‚ adding that people will frequently leave her sanctuaries saying they will never again eat chimp meat from the black market.
Dr. Goodall’s many campaigns against the “incarceration” and “exploitation” of animals used in laboratory research are also not universally popular with biologists.
“I certainly admire and respect the work that she’s done‚ and she is certainly entitled to that point of view‚” says Joseph Kemnitz‚ director of the National Primate Research Centre at the University of Wisconsin‚ where they have more than 1‚500 primates.
“But I am absolutely convinced that the work that we are doing is important‚ necessary and appropriate.”
Dr. Kemnitz and his colleagues are using primates — mostly marmosets‚ macaques and vervet monkeys‚ but no great apes — to try to create an HIV vaccine. Primates have their own version of the human immunodeficiency virus‚ and have immune systems very much like ours‚ making them really the only animal model one can use to study AIDS.
Dr. Goodall believes that it is precisely because primates are so similar to us that we should refrain from invasive medical research; after all‚ if they are so similar physically‚ it would follow that they experience pain and suffering much like we do.
“I certainly recognize the argument that since non–human primates are so close to us‚ they merit special consideration‚” Dr. Kemnitz says. “But at the same time they are not humans‚ and I think it’s appropriate for us to use them — in humane ways — to improve the quality of life for people.”
Dr. Goodall visited the centre when Dr. Kemnitz was a junior scientist there. Asked if she raised a stir‚ or made any harsh criticisms‚ he replies simply‚ “No‚ not at all.”
She is frequently described as extremely gentle. “People who exploit animals in whatever way‚ they make me angry‚” she says. “But if you want to do something about it‚ there’s no point going out under a cloak of anger. It doesn’t work. You just make people defensive.”
In her latest book‚ Harvest for Hope (2005)‚ Dr. Goodall explores modern agribusiness‚ and lambastes many of its practices‚ such as pesticide use‚ intensive fish farming and the use of antibiotics in factory farms.
“Writing Harvest for Hope was the toughest thing I’ve ever done‚” she says. “Knowing what has happened to food production‚ and the effect it has had on animals and the environment and our own health‚ is truly shocking. Just absolutely shocking.”
She is distrustful of genetic engineering‚ and in her book describes some of the recent‚ controversial research that suggests that GM food may pose a threat to our health.
A spokeswomen for Monsanto Canada‚ Trish Jordan‚ counters: “There are more than 25 Nobel Prize winners and more than 3‚400 scientists who have expressed their support for biotech food. Overwhelmingly‚ [genetically engineered crops] have been proven to be safe.”
Biotech advocates argue that GM crops can have higher yields and could therefore alleviate hunger worldwide. Dr. Goodall maintains that the real roots of hunger are economic and political‚ and insists that a switch to organic agriculture is the only way forward.
So confident is she in the movement that she suggests in Harvest for Hope that‚ “at this rate of growth‚ most of the food sold in the United States will be organic by the year 2020.”
She is also confident that it is possible‚ indeed likely‚ that humanity will find a way to stop environmental degradation before it is too late.
It might be easy to dismiss Dr. Goodall’s views as naive and idealistic. But her own life illustrates the importance of both traits.
She says it is unlikely that she would have made her discoveries of chimp behaviour if she had not been naive — she had not yet been to university and was unaware that naming the chimps and describing their “personalities” was considered scientifically unsound.
But she says it was precisely because she thought of them as individuals that she was able to think outside the box and discover their complex social interactions and behaviours‚ such as their lifelong ties to their mothers and the horrendous violence that can break out between rival chimp factions.
“The fact is that we’re not really very different from the rest of the animal kingdom‚” she says. “But one main thing [that does make us special] is our ability to communicate — and we’d better use it responsibly.”
Dr. Goodall now spends almost all her time trying to do just that.
The faces of her audience at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall on Monday night were brimming with the kind of admiration and excitement usually reserved for religious leaders or rock stars.
All evening‚ she had them hanging on her every word‚ laughing with delight when she greeted them with her chimp call‚ grim and silent as she mentioned the sharp decline in the African chimp population from at least a million a century ago to barely 150‚000 today. Some even choked with tears as she described orphaned chimps sold in markets alongside the carcasses of their butchered mothers.
She did not sugar–coat her assertion that the planet — and the human race — are in a crisis. But she also made it clear that she thinks we can fix it.
“I want to make people hope‚” she says. “Without hope‚ nobody does a thing. I want people to know that their decisions can make an impact. The collective decisions of a group of well–meaning people are going to start changing the world quite quickly.”
Idealistic? Perhaps. But it is rare to see somebody paint such a dark picture of the world’s problems — and yet leave so many people smiling.