By Nick Engelfried
When renowned scientist, conservationist, and educator Jane Goodall passed away on October 1, the world lost one of modern history’s greatest advocates for animals and nature. Over the course of her life, Goodall helped inspire many thousands–perhaps millions–of people to take action for a better world. As a scientist, she transformed our understanding of humankind’s closest relative and our perception of animal intelligence. Hers is truly a rare legacy that will be hard to replace.

Yet, the movements Jane Goodall was part of are now more important than ever–and each of us can play a role pushing them forward. Indeed, it’s time for animal lovers everywhere to take on a piece of the work that was at the center of Goodall’s amazing life.

Jane Goodall was born in England in 1934, and lived through the horrors of World War II early in her life. In her writings, she suggests experiencing the “blitz”–during which England was bombed by Nazi Germany–and watching English leaders and ordinary people fight back against Nazism had a profound effect on her. Much later in life, she would cite the heroism of those who stood up to fascism as an inspiration for her own activism on behalf of people and animals.

Goodall had always wanted to travel to Africa. In her twenties, at a time when air travel was much less widespread or accessible than today, she set sail on a passenger ship for Tanzania, where famed anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey employed her as a secretary. This led to Goodall accompanying Louis and Mary Leakey and their team on expeditions searching for the fossils of human ancestors in Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti Plain.

The Serengeti is home to a spectacular array of wildlife, including some of the world’s last great herds of antelope, zebras, and other hoofed mammals. For Goodall, working in this vast landscape provided a chance to demonstrate her abilities as a keen observer of the natural world. She impressed Louis Leakey enough that he eventually offered her the chance to study wild chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream region of Tanzania.

As humankind’s closest living relative, chimpanzees share many traits in common with us, and Leakey hoped Goodall’s study of them would help cast light on early human evolution. What almost no one could have foreseen is a study that was originally supposed to last a few months would turn into one of the longest-running wild animal research endeavors in history, or that it would upend our understanding of non-human primates.

Goodall’s early accomplishments at Gombe included the discovery that chimpanzees make and use tools–for example, by fashioning twigs into implements used to “fish” for termites in the insects’ large dirt mounds. Prior to this, only humans were believed to have the ability to make tools, and this new finding helped shrink the perceived gap between our species and the rest of the animal world. Goodall would go on to demonstrate that chimpanzees have complex social systems, appear to exhibit empathy toward others, and exhibit intelligence far beyond what most other scientists of the day would have imagined.

Today, we know chimpanzees aren’t the only other members of the animal kingdom to make and use tools, and that in fact we live in a world full of animal intelligence. The realization that animals experience compassion, fear, and problem-solving abilities calls into question human practices that treat other species as commodities or objects for us to exploit. Challenging how our society regards other animal life became a primary focus for Goodall later in life, as her groundbreaking study of chimpanzees led her to establish a global platform for advocating for both human and animal rights.

Over time, the short-term study of chimpanzees Louis Leakey had envisioned became a long-term project led by Goodall, with other researchers and volunteers involved in tracking the behavior of local chimps and their societies. Meanwhile, Goodall herself became increasingly concerned about the plight of chimpanzees both in the wild and in captivity. In 1977, she launched the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI)–which, while originally focused on funding scientific research at Gombe, soon branched into supporting conservation efforts in Tanzania and elsewhere.

Of particular concern to Goodall was the loss of chimpanzee habitat to deforestation, and the medical industry’s practice of imprisoning these intelligent creatures for cruel research experiments. Both these issues have seen serious progress thanks in part to the Jane Goodall Institute’s involvement.

A moment Goodall cited as helping launch her onto the path of activism was flying over the region around Gombe in 1992, and seeing the devastation of once vibrantly green landscapes reduced to barren brown hills. Although Goodall’s main research site was by that time protected within Gombe National Park, forests beyond the park boundaries were disappearing as a result of socioeconomic conditions that left local people little choice but to harvest trees for firewood and other uses. In the years that followed, JGI supported humanitarian work and forest monitoring work that together have allowed the reforestation of many areas around Gombe.

There has also been progress in the halls of medical laboratories. In 2011, a study by the National Institutes of Medicine determined experimentation on chimpanzees is not essential, and in 2015 the US National Institutes of Health announced all remaining chimps at its laboratories would be moved to sanctuaries or otherwise retired. This marks the virtual end of chimpanzee laboratory research in the United States.

Despite these victories, much work remains to be done on the many issues Jane Goodall campaigned on during her life. In 1991, Goodall founded Roots & Shoots, an international organization led by young people dedicated to advocating for animals, the environment, peace, and human rights. Today, Roots & Shoots continues to offer resources to young people anywhere who want to be part of this positive movement.

From climate change, to deforestation, to the continued use of animals in laboratories, our present moment in history presents vast challenges for people who care about animals and the planet. Despair in the face of these daunting global problems may be one of the biggest impediments to progress–and for this reason, Jane Goodall emphasized again and again throughout her career the importance of maintaining hope.

Perhaps more than anything else, the life of Jane Goodall is a reminder that ordinary people can make a difference on the most pressing issues of our time. After starting out as a young person saving waitressing tips to buy passage on a boat to Africa, Goodall became a conservation and humanitarian icon. An essential part of her message is that all of us have the opportunity to make choices that contribute to a better world.

With the passing of Jane Goodall, the world lost one its most beloved advocates for animals, people, and the planet. Now, it’s the turn of all of us who honor her memory to help make a more just and sustainable future a reality.

Photo credit: Floatjon

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Nick Engelfried Writes About Animals, the Environment, and Conservation for the ForceChange network