Jane Goodall was inspired by the fictional ape man Tarzan, and as a child, she set her life’s path toward going to Africa to work with wild animals. The rest, as they say, is history. As the world mourns the passing of a true conservation hero of our time, it is also a moment to celebrate her extraordinary legacy.
Jane was a trailblazer who dedicated her life to advancing humankind’s understanding of the natural world—particularly of chimpanzees. Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and a UN Messenger of Peace, this world-renowned primatologist, ethologist, conservationist, and humanitarian passed away on October 1 at the age of 91, of natural causes.
Dr Jane Goodall, DBE, was a remarkable figure whose work with chimpanzees fundamentally changed how people see, think about, and engage with primates. She was known worldwide for her 65-year study of wild chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania. In the latter part of her life, she broadened her focus and became a global advocate for human rights, animal welfare, environmental protection, and many other pressing issues.
Jane’s passion for wildlife began in early childhood, when she avidly read books about the natural world. Her dream was to travel to Africa, learn about animals, and write about them.
By the time Jane was a child, the Tarzan mystique was already well established. The first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels, Tarzan of the Apes, was published in 1912—twenty-two years before Goodall’s birth in 1934. When she began reading the novels at age eleven in 1945, seventeen books in the series had already been published.
In her 1999 book Reason for Hope, Jane recalled how, as a child, she combined her love of nature, books, and imagination by climbing a beech tree at her family home: “I could feel a part of the life of the tree, swaying when the wind blew strongly, close to the rustling of the leaves… And I would read up there, in my own leafy and private world. I think I went through all the Tarzan books thirty feet or so above the ground. I was madly in love with the Lord of the Jungle, terribly jealous of his Jane. It was daydreaming about life in the forest with Tarzan that led to my determination to go to Africa—to live with animals and write books about them.”
Jane worked as a waitress to save enough money for a sea voyage to Kenya. There, she was advised to meet the respected paleontologist Dr Louis Leakey, who hired her as a secretary at the National Museum in Nairobi. This opportunity led her to accompany Louis and Mary Leakey to Olduvai Gorge in search of fossils.
Having witnessed Jane’s patience and determination, Louis encouraged her to travel to Tanzania to study families of wild chimpanzees in the forests of Gombe. Looking back, Jane often said she would have “studied any animal,” but she felt extremely fortunate to have been given the chance to study humankind’s closest living relatives in the wild.
On July 14, 1960, Jane arrived in Gombe for the first time, where she began developing her groundbreaking understanding of chimpanzee behavior. Her discovery that chimpanzees use tools revolutionized science—an observation credited with “redefining what it means to be human.”
Knowing her work would only be taken seriously if she held academic credentials, and despite her lack of a university degree, Louis arranged for her to pursue a PhD in Ethology at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1965, she completed her doctoral thesis, The Behaviour of Free-Living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve. What began as a three-month study evolved into an extraordinary research program lasting decades—one that continues to this day.
“Every single day you live, you make a difference in the world.”
About six months before her death, Jane recorded an interview with Netflix—likely her last—intended for release posthumously. In it, she reflected: “In the place where I am now, I look back over my life. I look back at the world I’ve left behind. What message do I want to leave? I want you all to understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason. I just hope that reason becomes clear as you live your life. Whether or not you find that role, your life matters—and every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make.”
In that interview, Jane urged everyone to remember that we are part of the natural world—and that even in dark times, there is still hope: “Don’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing. If you want to save what is still beautiful in this world—if you want to save the planet for future generations, your grandchildren and theirs—then think about the actions you take each day. Because multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions can bring great change. I want you to understand that this life on Planet Earth isn’t the end. I believe—and now I know—that there is life beyond death, that consciousness survives.”
Jane continued: “I can’t tell you, from where I am, secrets that are not mine to share. I can’t tell you what you will find when you leave Planet Earth. But I want you to know that your life here will shape the kind of life you find after you die. Above all, remember that while you are on Planet Earth, you are part of Mother Nature. We depend on her for clean air, water, food, clothing—everything. As we destroy one ecosystem after another, worsening climate change and biodiversity loss, we must do all we can to make the world a better place for the children of today and tomorrow. You have the power to make a difference. Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful Planet Earth that I now look down upon. God bless you all.”
Jane was deeply committed to empowering young people to engage in conservation and humanitarian projects, leading numerous educational initiatives focused on both wild and captive chimpanzees. Her lifelong work was guided by a fascination with evolution’s mysteries and a steadfast belief in the importance of respecting all forms of life on Earth.
As she once said in a National Geographic documentary about her life: “Since I was eight or nine years old, I dreamed of being in Africa, living in the bush among wild animals. This was where I was meant to be. My life fell into a rhythm. Day after day, in the sun, the wind, and the rain, I climbed into the hills and stayed with the chimps from dawn until darkness fell.”
Her early fieldwork at the Gombe Stream Game Reserve in Tanzania revealed a rich catalogue of shared behaviors—both social and emotional—between humans and apes. She was, as her biographer Dale Peterson wrote, “the woman who redefined man.”
(This write-up borrowed information and insights from – official site of the Jane Goodall Institute; National Geographic documentary – Jane Goodall: An Inside Look; Netflix interview of Jane and ‘How Tarzan created Jane Goodall’ – an article by author, journalist Shawn Thompson.)
