Farewell, Jane Goodall: The Primatologist Who Taught Us Our Place in the World
Jane Goodall's legacy reminds us that hope is a responsibility.
advertisement
I come from the mountains, where life has always been lived in quiet companionship with animals. They are not only part of our livelihood, but part of our rhythm of being, sharing the same trails, the same water sources, the same sheltering forests.
I grew up watching shepherds speak to their flocks as if to children, villagers leaving food for stray dogs during harsh winters, and farmers treating their cattle less as property and more as kin.
In the mountains, you learn early that survival is not a solitary act but a shared existence.
It is this very bond between humans and the wider living world that Jane Goodall carried with her from the forests of Gombe to the global stage.
Jane Goodall was never simply a primatologist. She was, at heart, a gentle revolutionary, someone who saw in the eyes of chimpanzees not research “subjects,” but fellow beings in the larger family of life.
Her life’s work, her hope, and her unyielding voice for those who cannot speak for themselves remain an inheritance the world cannot afford to ignore.
A Journey Without a Map
Jane Goodall’s story did not begin in the ivory towers of academia. In fact, she had no scientific training when she first set foot in Africa. At 23, she was a London secretary with an insatiable curiosity, a childhood imagination fuelled by “Doctor Dolittle” and “Tarzan,” and the audacity to dream. With little more than savings from odd jobs, she boarded a ship to Kenya.
An encounter with the renowned anthropologist Louis Leakey changed everything. Leakey saw in her not credentials but an instinct, a deep connection to animals, and an unwavering patience.
He sent her to the forests of Gombe, Tanzania, a place where the boundary between the human and the non-human would forever blur.
That moment shattered centuries of human arrogance. “We must now redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as human,” Leakey famously said after her discovery.
Seeing Beings, Not Subjects
For Goodall, it was never about proving chimpanzees are “like us.” It was about recognising that they had always been themselves.
She refused to call the chimpanzees “subjects.” She called them David Greybeard, Flo, Goliath, individuals with personalities, affections, rivalries, and grief.
They waged wars, they reconciled, they mourned their dead. And through them, Goodall taught us a radical truth: we are not above the animal kingdom. We are within it.
As she once said, “The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.” Her voice became theirs.
Hope as an Act of Defiance
What made Jane Goodall remarkable was not only her discoveries but her relentless hope.
At a time when species are vanishing daily and forests are burning, it is easy to fall into despair. Goodall understood despair. She had seen chimpanzee habitats destroyed, forests vanish, and human cruelty inflicted on animals in cages and laboratories.
Yet, she chose hope.
Her belief was not naive but defiant. She found hope in the resilience of nature, in young people leading grassroots movements, in communities reviving ecosystems.
“Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?” she asked, not as condemnation, but as a plea for awakening.
At a time when women were often told to temper their ambitions, Jane Goodall quietly redefined what ambition could mean. She built her life’s work on qualities many dismissed as weaknesses: patience, care, and deep attentiveness, and revealed them to be strengths the world desperately needs to confront its ecological crises.
She founded the Jane Goodall Institute, Roots & Shoots, and TACARE—initiatives that gave communities and young people the tools to act for animals, for forests, and for the planet itself.
Even in her later years, she continued to travel tirelessly, urging governments, activists, and ordinary citizens to recognise the urgency of deforestation, climate change, and species protection.
She showed us that courage can be steady rather than loud, and that kindness, consistently practised has the power to reshape the world.
A Spiritual Bond with Nature
Unlike many scientists of her generation, Goodall did not separate science from spirit. She admitted freely, “I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature.”
Her spirituality was not dogmatic but experiential,a humility before the vastness of life.
For her, walking in the forest, feeling the interconnectedness of life, was enough. That recognition of something greater than oneself was at the root of her compassion.
Lessons for Our Time
The world mourns Jane Goodall, yet her passing is also a call, a summon, to honour her legacy through action. Her life leaves us with urgent lessons.
Redefine humanity. We are not rulers of the earth but part of its intricate web. To call animals “subjects” diminishes them and diminishes us.
Every action matters. As she said, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference.” The only choice is whether that difference will be destructive or healing.
Choose hope, even in crisis. Hope is not optimism, it is action rooted in belief. Goodall lived that truth every day, long after she left the forests of Gombe. Respect nature as sacred.
In her reverence for the forest, she reminded us that spirituality and science are not enemies but allies in seeking wisdom.
Jane Goodall’s Message for India
Jane Goodall’s passing also invites us in India to reflect. Her “Hope Tour” brought her to Mumbai and New Delhi in 2024, where she reminded us that conservation is not the task of governments alone but of every individual.
Yet, India is also a nation grappling with vanishing forests, shrinking habitats for elephants and tigers, and choking urban air.
Her reminder that “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you” asks us to look at how our choices—from what we consume to how we treat animals on our streets—shape the future.
The lesson she leaves India is clear: development cannot come at the cost of compassion, and hope must be built into our policies, our communities, and our everyday lives.
A Farewell with Gratitude
Jane Goodall’s life is a reminder that even one individual can change the world, not through force, but through quiet persistence and unshakable faith.
Today, as forests shrink and climate change accelerates, her absence feels heavy. Yet, her presence endures—in every conservation movement she inspired, in every young person who plants a tree, in every voice that refuses to be silent for the voiceless.
Her words echo as a final benediction: “The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Jane Goodall’s endless hope was not a denial of reality but an embrace of responsibility. To honor her memory is not merely to mourn her passing; it is to live her message.
The greatest tribute we can offer Jane Goodall is not in words, but in action: to live with compassion, to defend the living world, and to remember that the story of humanity cannot be written without the story of the earth.
(Kanwal Singh is a policy analyst and writer from Jammu and Kashmir. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the authors' own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)