Reason for hope – Jane Goodall
Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall (born on 3rd April 1934) is an English primatologist, anthropologist, animal lover and environmentalist. She begins her autobiography by drawing a picture of her childhood in war-torn England. Growing up beside her mother and granny whom she lovingly referred to as Danny. Jane takes the readers on a fascinating journey throughout her early years, how her curiosity with animals built up over time, growing up in granny’s garden, to living her dream of helping chimpanzees in wilderness of Gombe, Tanzania.
Throughout her childhood and early years, witnessing the horrendous scenes of the Nazi-led concentration camps and the destruction of the war, Jane begins to lose hope in humanity. One time even escaping her own death, as a bomb dropped on the beach she was on whilst playing with her mother. She often wonders, as taught in Sunday church and the regular sermons by her favourite preacher, are we humans really born in god’s own image? The only respite she receives from all this negativity is by being nearby nature and animals. From young age she cared for and put her trust in animals.
Jane recollects memories of her early years in London while studying a secretarial course and the hardships of the post-war consequences. Shortages of food led her and most people to survive on meagre supplies. Over time she paddled through her student life but was rewarded immensely with an opportunity to get to travel to Africa. On her maiden voyage to Africa, Jane is clearly excited, joyous and at the same time overwhelmed. Spending her time in Africa gave her a new perspective of life as she begins to heal the wounds left in her heart from the war atrocities, by being atone with nature.
The moment arrives when after spending some time in Africa, Jane decides to commence working for an anthropologist named Louis Leakey, with whom she takes her first of many field trips into the wilderness of Africa. Her vivid description takes the reader onto a very personal experience. This time spent in the forests, laid the foundation for her to discover more about the history of humans as the curiosity had already seeped into her mind during her childhood.
Louis, shares his desire with Jane to study the chimpanzees of Gombe, a forest range in Tanzania. Her excitement knows no bounds, as she prepares herself for the life changing experience. As she lands in Gombe, she finally feels at peace and at one with mother nature. The first task of her research on chimpanzees was to study them and report any comparable habits to humans. After the first couple of months, Jane finally witnesses the first chimp altering and using a branch to draw out termites for food and thus manifesting human-like ability to create tools. She joyously names the chimp as David Greybeard. David is mentioned throughout the rest of her life’s tale.
Now, after the first discovery of human like habits, chimps fascinate Jane even more. She follows them for hours daily, photographing and writing about her findings. On the way she keeps naming them, although it lands her in trouble with the anthropologist community of the western world. After returning from Gombe, for the first time to the developed world, her newfound perspective presents her with the man-made damages to the environment. How is the greed of us humans ruining this planet we call home? Jane finally finds solace on her return to the forest, but this time another surprise awaits her. Her popularity draws attention from the National Geographic society and several students are sent over to help her with the research. Of those, 4 students are kidnapped by Laurent Kabila, and returned only after the kidnapper’s demands for ransom are met with by the German and American embassies. Jane later discovers that the same ransom money was used by the revolutionaries to overthrow the then President Mobutu’s dictator government to take over Zaire thus leading to the formation of Democratic Republic of Congo.
During her research Jane, learning of the natural behaviours of chimps, relates on of their aspect to humans i.e., pseudo speciation. She discovers in-out grouping persists even in chimps as this cultural speciation in humans have led to racism, wars, famines, religious atrocities, genocides and may lead to another world war. All these years spent peacefully in the company of mother nature comes to a dream shattering reality when Jane unearths the plightful conditions of chimpanzees and other animals in the human captivity for various purposes such as, laboratory research, the entertainment industry, and the cosmetic industry. S
he visits a few centres and is distraught at the picture in front of her eyes. Jane cannot comprehend, how the fun loving and playful chimps could survive for long in such conditions, for she had witnessed them in their natural glory.
Thus begins her drive to bring about a change. Jane commences her philanthropist work for the wellbeing of animals in captivity and to amend the damages to the environment. How is the deforestation leading to depleting numbers of natural habitat? Hence forms the Jane Goodall Institute and an activist group for volunteers named Roots and Shoots. Concludingly, Jane puts her hope in humans and humanity as she witnesses that several people join her in drive to preserve the forests and environment.
The book gave me a new perspective about mother nature and its beings. We as humans have a great responsibility towards preserving our home, as we are the only specie present on earth with cognitive skills and conscience thinking. We should ask ourselves, are we ready to leave this planet we call home, in a worse condition as we found it at birth, for the next generation?
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