Conservationist Jane Goodall Warns of “Sixth Great Extinction”

Jane Goodall, with her characteristic shawl and silver hair, conveyed a sense of calm during a video call. In a hotel room in Vienna, a press team and a small group of filmmakers, documenting her current speaking tour, attended to her. The renowned primatologist and conservationist settled into a tall chair that made her slender figure appear even smaller. On the screen, her toy monkey, Mr H, was visible on a shelf behind her. This toy, a gift from a friend nearly 30 years ago, has accompanied her on her travels worldwide. Dr. Goodall is now 90 years old, and she and Mr H continue their journeys. “I am a little bit exhausted,” she acknowledged. “I’ve come here from Paris. And after here I go to Berlin, then Geneva. I’m on this tour talking about the danger to the environment and some of the remedies,” she stated. One of the solutions she intended to discuss was a tree-planting and habitat restoration initiative being undertaken in Uganda by her eponymous foundation and the non-profit technology company, Ecosia. Over the past five years, these organizations, with the support of local communities and smallholder farmers, have planted nearly two million trees. “We’re in the midst of the sixth great extinction,” Dr. Goodall informed me during our interview for BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science. “The more we can do to restore nature and protect existing forests, the better.” The primary objective of this project is to restore the endangered habitat of Uganda’s 5,000 chimpanzees. Dr. Goodall has dedicated decades to studying and advocating for the protection of these primates. However, the activist also aims to emphasize the threat that deforestation poses to our climate. “Trees have to grow to a certain size before they can really do their work,” she explained. “But all this [tree-planting] is helping to absorb carbon dioxide.” This week, global leaders have convened in Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29, the latest round of UN climate discussions. Dr. Goodall asserted that taking action to mitigate the warming of our planet is more critical than ever. “We still have a window of time to start slowing down climate change and loss of biodiversity,” Dr. Goodall remarked. “But it’s a window that’s closing.” She highlighted that the destruction of forests and other natural areas is inherently linked to the climate crisis. “So much has changed in my lifetime,” she reflected, recalling that in the forests of Tanzania, where she began studying chimpanzees over 60 years ago, “you used to be able to set your calendar by the timing of the two rainy seasons.” She added, “Now, sometimes it rains in the dry season, and sometimes it’s dry in the wet season. It means the trees are fruiting at the wrong time, which upsets the chimpanzees, and also the insects and the birds.” Over the decades she has spent studying and campaigning to safeguard the habitat of wild chimpanzees, she has observed the widespread destruction of forests across Africa: “And I’ve seen the decrease in chimpanzee numbers.” She warned, “If we don’t get together and impose tough regulations on what people are able to do to the environment – if we don’t rapidly move away from fossil fuel, if we don’t put a stop to industrial farming, that’s destroying the environment and killing the soil, having a devastating effect on biodiversity – the future ultimately is doomed.” Her words revealed a resilience that contrasted with her articulate and gentle demeanor. When Jane Goodall commenced observing and studying chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, she was a pioneer. Her research, now considered groundbreaking, was initially met with controversy. She was the first individual to observe and document chimpanzees creating and utilizing tools – the primates fashioned sticks to extract termites. Before her observations, this capability was believed to be exclusively human. She also discovered that these animals form strong family bonds and even engage in territorial warfare. However, her methodology – closely associating with the animals she studied, giving them names, and even referring to them as “my friends” – was ridiculed by some scientists, predominantly men. Her supervisor and mentor, Professor Louis Leakey, however, recognized the value in her approach: “He wanted somebody whose mind wasn’t messed up by the reductionist attitude of science to animals,” Dr. Goodall clarified. “You don’t have a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a horse and not give them a name. It’s the same as when I studied squirrels in my garden as a little girl – they all had names.” Her methods, coupled with her profound connection to the primates to whom she has devoted her life, have afforded her a distinctive perspective. She recounted a “wonderful moment” with a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard, the male chimp she first saw making and using tools to catch termites. “He was the first to lose his fear of me,” she remembered. “I sat down near him and, lying on the ground, was the ripe red fruit of an oil palm. I held it out towards him and he turned his head away. Then I put my hand closer and he turned and looked into my eyes, reached out and very gently squeezed my fingers.” She concluded, “That is how chimpanzees reassure each other. We understood each other perfectly – with a gestural language that obviously predates human speech.” Dr. Goodall’s career has frequently presented challenges. She has documented the early years of her work for Professor Leakey, a distinguished scientist who significantly influenced her career. He repeatedly expressed his affection for her, creating pressure that, by contemporary standards, might be considered sexual harassment. Nevertheless, she rejected his advances and maintained her focus on her work and her beloved chimpanzees. Now, having reached 90 years of age this year, she shows no signs of slowing down. When asked what sustains Dr. Goodall, she responded emphatically, appearing charmingly offended by the inquiry: “Surely people want a future for their children. If they do, we have to get tougher about [environmental] legislation.” She stressed, “We don’t have much time left to start helping the environment. We’ve done so much to destroy it.”