In short
Dr Jane Goodall’s Desert Island Discs episode focuses on her life-changing chimp research at Gombe, her challenge to the idea that only humans make tools, and her later conservation advocacy for endangered chimpanzees.
Guest backgrounds
Jane Goodall is a primatologist and naturalist. She traveled to Africa at 26 to study chimpanzees at Gombe on Lake Tanganyika, working with Louis Leakey despite having no academic qualifications. She later founded/ran chimp sanctuaries and developed the Roots & Shoots youth program.
Key claims
Chimpanzees deliberately make tools (e.g., grass tools used to extract termites). Naming chimps is not harmful “anthropomorphism.” Chimp numbers collapsed due to habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade; individuals can drive change.
Notable examples
David Greybeard’s termite-fishing tool use; David grooming instead of fleeing; hostage-taking of her Gombe students by Laurent Kabila’s rebel group; sanctuaries for baby chimps tied to bushmeat markets.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VODr. Jane Goodall's Journey to Gombe
0:45 to 4:20
Exploration of Jane Goodall's early life and her arrival in Africa.
“From her observation of the chimpanzees who live there came the realisation of how close we humans are to our animal ancestors and a life devoted to man's relationship to the planet he inhabits.”
Establishing Trust with Chimpanzees
4:20 to 8:15
Jane describes her experiences gaining acceptance from chimpanzees.
“The Dvorak Cello Concerto is one of my favorite pieces of music.”
The Moment of Connection
8:15 to 10:12
A pivotal moment when Jane felt accepted by the chimpanzees.
“It's a little bit like those prawn crisps that you have with cocktails.”
Musical Influences and Memories
10:12 to 14:30
Jane reflects on significant pieces of music in her life.
“Daniel Barenboim playing the opening of Beethoven's Sonata No.”
Facing Danger in the Bush
14:30 to 17:40
Jane discusses the various dangers she faced in Gombe, including wildlife and human threats.
“Yehudi Menuhin playing part of the opening of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Fortwengler.”
Reflections on Motherhood
17:40 to 19:52
Jane reflects on motherhood and the important lessons learned from chimpanzees.
“We often used to play it during suppers in the big mess we all shared.”
The Importance of Names in Animal Research
19:52 to 21:52
Jane explains her choice to name chimpanzees and the anthropomorphism debate.
“But it also became apparent how tremendously important for the child it was to have a good mother, an attentive, protective and supportive mother.”
A Call to Action
21:52 to 24:46
Jane describes a pivotal moment in Notre Dame that motivated her conservation efforts.
“the Bach to Carter and Fugue in G Minor marks a turning point in my life.”
The Decline of Chimpanzees in Africa
24:46 to 27:58
Jane discusses the alarming decline of chimpanzees and the factors contributing to their endangerment.
“We had sessions showing chimpanzees in medical research in these tiny five foot by five foot cages and I thought the time's come when now I must use the knowledge I've gained and try and do something to help.”
The Impact of Bushmeat Trade on Wildlife
28:01 to 29:24
Learn about the dangers of the bushmeat trade and its effects on African wildlife.
“cutting down trees for firewood and building poles and so forth.”
Show all 15 chapters
Rescue Efforts and Community Engagement
29:25 to 30:56
Discover how sanctuaries are established to rescue chimps and engage local communities.
“So we established these sanctuaries, which are a nightmare.”
Hope and Individual Responsibility
30:57 to 31:25
Understand the role of individual action in driving environmental change.
“Shoots seem tiny, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls.”
Imagining Life on a Desert Island
31:26 to 33:08
Explore Jane Goodall's thoughts on life and peace on a desert island.
“And Christmas has always meant an enormous lot to all of my family.”
Music and Emotional Connection
33:09 to 34:26
Hear Jane Goodall's reflections on music that evokes joy and emotion.
“You tell me, what does your island look like?”
Choosing Records and Personal Reflections
34:27 to 36:00
Listen to Jane's choices for records and personal insights on literature and luxury.
“rare 15 my meeting thechter chter Thank you.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Dr Jane Goodall:Lauren Laverne here. We're taking our Easter break, so until we're back on air, we're showcasing a few programmes from our archive. As usual, the music's been shortened for rights reasons. This week's guest is the primatologist Dr Jane Goodall, who died last year at the age of 91. Sue Lawley cast her away in 2000.
0:36Dr Jane Goodall:My castaway this week is a naturalist. When she was 26, she travelled to Africa to fulfil a lifelong dream and study animals. At a place called Gombe on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, her dreams became reality. From her observation of the chimpanzees who live there came the realisation of how close we humans are to our animal ancestors and a life devoted to man's relationship to the planet he inhabits. Her critics have called her anthropomorphic, unscientific, but she is unrepentant. I've tried to assuage some of the guilt we all must feel for our inhumanity to man and beast alike, she says, and I shall go on trying to the end.
1:18Dr Jane Goodall:She is Jane Goodall. Jane, yours really is a story of a dream coming true. Can you remember when you first arrived in the Gombe? Did you know instantly that this was the place you were going to be happy in?
1:31Sue Lawley:I knew from the moment that I went along the lakeshore, looking up at the rugged mountains, that this was going to be a challenge. But that I was going to just have an amazing, extraordinary adventure. And I couldn't actually believe that it was happening. It was very hard for me to think that this is me and this is really real and not a dream anymore. Because it was where you'd always intended to be. Yes, it was Africa. Africa from the time when I was 11, it had to be Africa. And, you know, eventually through thick and thin I got there and this amazing opportunity came. Can you describe it to me?
2:06Sue Lawley:Describe the place first of all. Looking from the shores of Lake Tanganyika, which is the longest freshwater lake in the world, you look up and the sky is usually blue and there's the mountains of the rift escarpment with the steep forested valleys and the rather more open slopes and peaks in between. And when you get in there, when you walk up the valleys, it's a whole new world of forest with dim light and little flecks of sunlight coming down from the canopy and dancing on the floor. And it's quiet and it's my idea of heaven on earth. It's your Garden of Eden. It's my Garden of Eden with bright butterflies and birds calling and little rustles and then the chimpanzees.
2:47Sue Lawley:How long did it take you to be accepted by them? Were you ever totally accepted? The chimpanzees at first just ran away. I mean, even if I was on the other side of a valley, a steep-sided valley, they would take one look at this weird white ape and flee. They're very conservative. And it was because I just sat and didn't try and get too close too quickly and wore the same colored clothes every day and pretended not to be interested in them. You know, eventually they realized, well, she's not as terrifying as we thought.
3:17Dr Jane Goodall:So all those years ago, when was the moment that you knew now they've accepted me?
3:23Sue Lawley:I think, well, there were two moments, actually. The first was when I came by accident too close to a group. And instead of running away, they looked at me and went on grooming. And one of the chimps in that group was David Greybeard, who lost his fear before all the others. and the moment that I can never forget was when I was following him and I thought I'd lost him. I was pushing through these thorny undergrowth and there he was sitting by a little stream and near him was a ripe red palm nut. So I picked up that nut because they loved them and held it out to him and he looked deeply into my eyes and he took that nut and dropped it.
4:02Sue Lawley:But at the same time while he still looked in my eyes he gave this gentle reassurance, the squeezing of his fingers on my hand and it was like going back into the distant mists of the past to a language which our ancient common ancestors must have used. Tell me about your first record. The Dvorak Cello Concerto is one of my favorite pieces of music. It has a very lamenting quality to it and I've always loved it and I had one friend who was very special and he was a person that maybe we could have made a go of it, but it didn't work out that way in any way he was married. But we played that on the last evening we were together and decided that when we heard that we would think of each other.
5:06Dr Jane Goodall:Thank you.
5:45Dr Jane Goodall:Jacqueline Dupre playing part of Dvorak's cello concerto in B minor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. It's a remarkable thing, Jane Goodall, that a nicely brought up girl from Bournemouth in the 1930s, without any qualification, should find herself in the middle of Africa studying chimpanzees. Who sent you there? Who gave you the commission?
6:08Sue Lawley:It was the late Louis Leakey, that giant of a man. And, you know, I was working for him in Nairobi as his secretary assistant. And he began talking about these chimpanzees. Well, of course, that was exactly the kind of thing I'd always wanted to do. But he was a paleontologist, wasn't he? Yes, but he was also fascinated by animals. And he felt that if we understood something about the behavior of our closest living relatives in the natural habitat, It would help him to have a better feeling for how our own earliest ancestors may have behaved. At that point, as I understand it, it was believed that only man used tools.
6:44Dr Jane Goodall:That's right.
6:44Sue Lawley:The animals didn't. We were defined as man, the tool user and tool maker.
6:48Dr Jane Goodall:And you turned that one on its head, didn't you?
6:50Sue Lawley:Well, I'll never forget seeing. It was David Graybeard again. And I was pushing my way back through the rain, through the tool grass. And David wasn't yet completely habituated. and I saw this dark shape crouched on a red termite mound and I peered through my binoculars, you know, and I could see that he was using a grass and pushing it into the termite mound and picking something off. It wasn't until sometime later when I'd seen this again and again that I realised, you know, these really were deliberately picked tools. Sometimes a leafy twig was stripped of the leaves. That's the beginning of tool making.
7:23Sue Lawley:And this was to get the termites from their underground passages. Sort of fishing down the hole for them. fishing down the hole and sometimes for as long as an hour or more at a time working away like this and it really did i mean lewis was just so excited and he said now we have to redefine man redefine tool or accept chimpanzees as humans and that enabled him to get money for me to continue the study it's a lot of effort for very little one would have thought i mean termites very tiny but they're very very nutritious are very filled with fat and lipids apparently and And on a good day, you get a long piece of, you know, you can push it down a long way if you're a chimp.
8:02Sue Lawley:So you can have sort of nearly a foot of tool coated with clinging termites. You've never tasted one, I take it. Oh, I tasted almost everything the chimps eat. They're actually very good cooked. How do you cook termites? You fry them. Good heavens.
8:17Dr Jane Goodall:And what do they taste like? Can you describe it?
8:19Sue Lawley:It's a little bit like those prawn crisps that you have with cocktails. A bit more tasty.
8:27Dr Jane Goodall:So everything then had to be reappraised, as you say, the way in which we understood human nature and the way man works. One of the great achievements of 20th century scholarship, I think that discovery was called. And you, as I said at the beginning, have no academic qualifications whatsoever. In a sense, maybe, was that why Lewis Leakey wanted you to go, that you were more open-minded?
8:49Sue Lawley:Yes, he wanted someone whose mind, as he put it, was not cluttered up by the reductionist thinking of the animal behaviorists of the time. And he felt that somebody like that would be more open to actually recording what's there in front of them rather than trying to go out and prove or disprove some hypothesis.
9:10Dr Jane Goodall:And you did.
9:10Sue Lawley:And I did. Tell me about your second record. the Moonlight Sonata I suppose has been one of my favorite pieces of music since I was a tiny child because when I was growing up in England in Bournemouth in this lovely old red brick house the Birch's which is still ours today my grandmother used to play the piano she never had a lesson but she had this wonderful feeling and heart and she taught herself and she used to play the Moonlight Sonata and I'd be upstairs in bed with my sister. And in the summer I can remember this music coming in through the open window along with all the insects, the moths and things that were in the garden at that time.
10:12Thank you.
10:52Dr Jane Goodall:Daniel Barenboim playing the opening of Beethoven's Sonata No. 14, The Moonlight. Were you always fascinated by animals?
10:59Sue Lawley:Yes, I was fascinated by animals apparently even when I was, you know, a year old. and I know mum has all these amazing stories like finding earthworms in my bed when I was one and a half and not being mad but saying they need the earth and I running back into the garden. But you take them to bed with you? I take them to bed because perhaps I was curious as to how they could walk without legs. She said I was watching them really intently as they wriggled about the bedrooms.
11:22Dr Jane Goodall:And didn't you spend many hours in the hen house at one point?
11:25Sue Lawley:Yes, I was four and a half and we'd gone to spend a holiday in the country with my father's family's farm. So, you know, this little girl loving animals. At that time, we lived in London, and there were the cows and the pigs and the horses. My job was to collect hen's eggs and, you know, the egg, you know, the size of an egg. And I kept looking and looking and couldn't see a hole big enough for the egg to come out. Apparently, I asked everyone and nobody told me. So I hid in a hen house. Four hours, four hours. They called the police. They didn't know where I was.
11:55Dr Jane Goodall:Well, to see how the egg came out.
11:56Sue Lawley:To see how the egg came out. So I can still see it. Now, that's a long time for a four-year-old to wait. And again, my mother was, you know, desperate with worry. But when she saw the shining eyes, instead of getting mad at me, she sat down to listen to the story.
12:10Dr Jane Goodall:She obviously as well was very patient with you. I mean, there are so many stories, aren't there? She certainly came with you out to Africa when you first went. She had to come, didn't she?
12:21Sue Lawley:Well, Lois Leakey finally got the money for me. And that was hard since I had no training at that time. But then the British authorities, because Tanzania today was Tanganyika, British Protectorate, a young girl in the bush on her own, preposterous, impossible. But, you know, he never gave up. And in the end, they said, all right, but she must have a companion. So mother went too. She volunteered and came for the first four months. And it was marvelous because one, she was a wonderful person to share all the excitements and the frustrations with every evening when I exhaustedly trailed down the mountain.
12:53Sue Lawley:But secondly, she set up a little clinic with very simple aspirins and plasters and things and became known as a white witch doctor. So she established this wonderful relationship with all the local people.
13:04Dr Jane Goodall:But again, that patience, I've seen photographs of her standing there with a walkie-talkie in hand because you would be off and away, as you say, for hours somewhere in the bush.
13:13Sue Lawley:And it was dangerous. Well, it could have been dangerous, but for her too. I mean, you know, sort of I accepted the fact that she was down there on her own and she felt that she would impress me by following steaming buffalo pats. And I said, no, please don't. But she was a fabulous companion and it was pretty sad when she had to go. Record number three. Yehudi Menuhin playing the violin concerto. That was the first piece of music, I think, that really got to me because it was my sister who was the musical one. and she was doing music lessons and always going down to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
13:49Sue Lawley:And I went to fetch her one day to meet her, and I got there early, and I heard this Yehudi menu was inside, and it just went straight into my soul. And that, I think, was the beginning of my real love of classical music.
14:30¶¶
14:57Dr Jane Goodall:Yehudi Menuhin playing part of the opening of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Fortwengler. We talked about your mother worrying about you in the bush, but how dangerous has it got on occasions? You must have been frightened of leopards and lions, for example.
15:16Sue Lawley:I was frightened of leopards when I first got to Gombe. And, you know, I'd sometimes hear them when I was sleeping out at night. But I thought, well, you know, it's my fate to be here. So I just pulled a little blanket over my head and tried to ignore them. But they'd still smell you, wouldn't they? Well, yeah, but they aren't really that dangerous. You know, and yes, you can be unlucky with a poisonous snake. But usually if they hear you coming, they glide out of the way. You know, most animals are pretty decent. and it's human animals that are the danger. But you've been threatened by those, of course, in the bush too.
Read the full transcript
15:45Sue Lawley:I've been threatened by humans in the bush. Probably the most dangerous could have been the chimps in the early days. When they lost their fear, they became rather belligerent, treated me a little bit as though I was a leopard and tried to drive me away. You know, they're so much stronger than we are. But, you know, they in fact never have really attacked us.
16:05Dr Jane Goodall:You mentioned danger from man in the bush. Of course, your camp over the years has been attacked by hostile humans. Weren't some of your student helpers, your researchers, once in fact taken hostage?
16:16Sue Lawley:Yeah, they were taken hostage by a rebel group from Zaire, actually headed by the man who's now president of Congo, Laurent Kabila. He took them hostage. And that was probably the worst time of my life, that time when those students were held hostage. How long were they away? Well, the longest was two months. One of them came back after two weeks, and the others were rescued after about a month or a month and a week or something like that. That was a terrible, terrible time. You had to pay a ransom in the end, didn't you?
16:46Dr Jane Goodall:A ransom was paid by one of the parents, yes. Terrible anguish, as you say, and yet you both bore and brought up a child in that environment.
16:57Sue Lawley:Brave? Foolhardy? What is it? Neither, because Grubb was brought up in Gombe long before this happened, when it really was idyllic. There was no danger. He had danger from the chimp, so we had to watch him. But the beach, he could swim like a little fish in the lake. It was clean, pure water. I mean, really an idyllic way for a child to grow up. And a lot of time on the Serengeti, where again you had to make sure he didn't get eaten up by lions and things, but so clean, so free from pollution. Just a wonderful place to bring up a child. No worries. Some worries. He could get malaria. But, you know, think of the worries in a city today.
17:35Sue Lawley:Tell me about your next record. Under Milkwood, Dylan Thomas. The students at Gombeet loved it. We often used to play it during suppers in the big mess we all shared. And then my second husband, Derek Bryson. Sometimes we couldn't sleep and we would put this tape on. And I particularly like the part where Bessie Big Head is bringing the cows in in the evening for the milking, the way cows ought to be brought in, milked by hand.
18:03Dr Jane Goodall:The coming of the end of the spring day is already reflected in the lakes of their great eyes. Bessie Bighead greets them by the name she gave them when they were maidens. Meg, Meg, Buttercup, Moll, Fan from the castle, Theodosia and Daisy. They bow their heads. Look up Bessie Bighead in the white book of Laregib, and you will find the few haggard rags and the one poor glittering thread of her history laid out in pages there with as much love and care as the lock of hair of a first lost love. Conceived in milkwood, born in a barn, wrapped in paper, left on a doorstep, big-headed and bass-voiced, she grew in the dark until long-dead Gomeroen kissed her when she wasn't looking.
19:04Dr Jane Goodall:because he was dead. Richard Burton reading from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood about Bessie Bighead counting in the cows. Yours is also a very romantic story, Jane, because you worked in the bush and you hadn't been there very long when this visiting photographer from the National Geographic magazine, very handsome, aristocratic young man, was sent along and you fell in love with him and got married. I mean, paradise got even better.
19:29Sue Lawley:I know, Hugo van Looick. It did seem a marriage made in heaven. Did it? Yes.
19:34Dr Jane Goodall:And then you had your baby, baby Hugo, Grubb. Yes. You said that you learned a lot about motherhood from the chimpanzees. How so?
19:43Sue Lawley:Well, I was watching the old matriarch, Flo, and the wonderful old female, Melissa, and I saw how they loved their infants and had fun with them. That was what I noticed. You know, they had fun. But it also became apparent how tremendously important for the child it was to have a good mother, an attentive, protective and supportive mother. And gradually we realized that those who grew up with a rather more harsh, less supportive, less affectionate mother, they didn't do so well as they became older.
20:13Dr Jane Goodall:Are you sure you got this from the chimpanzees and not from your own mother? It's a mixture of both. And father chimps actually don't subscribe much to this family set up, do they?
20:24Sue Lawley:They play a very important role, actually. They have to protect the territory for the females and young, and they have to protect that territory from incursion by other males. And so we now know that they patrol the boundaries and can be pretty savage in their defense of those boundaries or even enlarge them and get more resources for their own females and young. And it turns out that males can, when occasion demands, show really good paternal behavior and care for orphans and save their lives. Really? You've seen that happening? We've seen it several times. Usually it's an older brother who takes on a baby when the mother dies, but we even had a completely unrelated adolescent of 12 years old who saved a little three-year-old's life.
21:06Dr Jane Goodall:You obviously, as we've said, you've given them all names, you recognise them. They become as recognisable to you as human beings, do they? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And when you were criticised for giving them names and people said it was anthropomorphism,
21:21Sue Lawley:Did that hurt? Did that sting? No, because, you know, when I went out there, I didn't realize I shouldn't have given them names. I didn't realize they weren't supposed to have personalities or emotions or rational thought. And I'd learned from my dog, Rusty, that all these things were, you know, boulder dash. As I never had wanted to be a scientist and only did a PhD to make Lewis Leakey happy and make him proud of me, I didn't really mind what people said. So I was really lucky. I didn't have to bother.
21:50Dr Jane Goodall:Record number five.
21:52Sue Lawley:the Bach to Carter and Fugue in G Minor marks a turning point in my life. It's a very, very important piece of music for me. And it just flooded out into the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the first time I ever went into it. I've been longing to go there ever since I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And it was a difficult time of my life. I was having a divorce from Hugo. And there was this amazing cathedral, the sun pouring in through that great rose window, this incredible music and as I listened to it I thought you know, why am I here? What is the purpose? Is there a purpose to life on this planet?
22:29Sue Lawley:What am I meant to be doing? It was a sort of call to action although I didn't really understand at the time exactly what it would lead to.
22:54The End
23:32Dr Jane Goodall:Helmut Wacher playing part of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. So, Jane Goodall, that was 1974 when you heard that in Notre Dame. You'd have been 40 years old. You were just divorced from your husband and your little boy would have been about seven. and you describe it as a call to action. Tell me more, what did you actually hear?
23:54Sue Lawley:It's not really clear to me looking back why I felt the way I did. It just seemed to take me back to my earlier preoccupation with religion, with God, with, you know, is there a purpose to life or are we an accident? And when I heard that piece of music it was as though some voice said, it isn't an accident. It couldn't possibly be an accident. It couldn't be just chance gyrations of bits of matter that's created this glorious cathedral and the music and the mind that can encompass all this and ask these questions. There has to be some kind of plan. And what did you feel you had to do as a result of that?
24:33Sue Lawley:What was the action that you were being called to? The actual meaning of the call to action came much, much later in 1986 when I went to a conference and we had sessions about conservation where it became apparent that the chimps were disappearing across Africa. We had sessions showing chimpanzees in medical research in these tiny five foot by five foot cages and I thought the time's come when now I must use the knowledge I've gained and try and do something to help. But what it meant, of course, if you were going to do that, was you had to quit your paradise. I had to quit the paradise, but you know, once you realise that the paradise is threatened, then it becomes a necessity to quit in order to try to save.
25:17Dr Jane Goodall:But in order to do it you have to go and do all of the things that are the complete antithesis of that paradise. You know climbing on planes and trains and travelling and being surrounded by people, oppressed by people, crowds everywhere. How can you bear it when you've enjoyed all those years of that peace?
25:35Sue Lawley:I think it's because I feel that there's a mission. I just feel that I'm being pushed in these directions and I have to do it. And I do keep some of the peace of the forest within. Do you? And yes, I do. And you know, I had all those years. I mean, how many people are lucky enough to live their dream for so long, to be in paradise? And you know, life goes through phases and I just suddenly knew that the next phase was to begin, which is the sharing and the trying to help. So it's a sort of voluntary exile. It's a sort of paying back, really, is it? It's a paying. It's very, very much a paying back And once you know that you're supposed to be doing something else, you're not happy in your paradise anymore.
26:16Sue Lawley:You would, you know, you can't kick against the pricks. I think of it as, you know, the St. Paul on the road to Damascus. I went into that conference as a scientist, planning to write volume two of this big book, The Chimps of Gombe. And I came out as an advocate or something. It was really as a mission. Literally, yeah, sort of just like that. It was absolutely extraordinary. And since that time, I haven't been more than three weeks in one place ever. Record number six. Well, memory from Cats. I never liked musicals, and I was taken to Cats in New York, and I met the cast. In fact, I'd been photographed with them.
26:53Sue Lawley:And I just fell in love with this particular song, and there is another special person in my life, and that was his favorite song too. So it's something that we share and play to each other sometimes, and I think it's very, very beautiful.
27:12Dr Jane Goodall:I must wait for the sunrise. I must think of a new life and I must give it. When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too. And a new day will begin.
27:43Dr Jane Goodall:Elaine Page singing Memory from the original London production of Cats. At the turn of the century, Jane, there were two million chimps in Africa and now they're an endangered species. What has happened? How has it happened? Why has it happened?
27:57Sue Lawley:It's happened partly because of the relentless destruction of habitats as human populations grow and need more and more and more land, cutting down trees for firewood and building poles and so forth. and the real danger now that threatens the last of all big animals in the African forest, the remaining forest, is the bushmeat trade. And that is the logging companies make roads into the forest and even the responsible logging companies that do care for the forest, the roads are used by hunters. So where subsistence hunting was practiced for hundreds and hundreds of years feeding your family, now the hunters are commercial and they go in from the towns for the first time they have roads and transport.
28:39Sue Lawley:They ride on the logging trucks. They shoot everything. They sun-dry it or smoke it, load it on the trucks and take it back to the towns. They sell chimp meat. They sell chimp, gorilla, bonobo, elephant, everything down to birds and bats. Everything is shot. And so the forests stand there and they're dead.
28:57Dr Jane Goodall:And you make it your business, I know, to rescue a chimpanzee whenever you can. If you see one for sale, you can see them, can't you, in cages in Central African. tans. Who would buy them and why?
29:08Sue Lawley:They're tied up in the markets. They are the byproduct of the bushmeat trade. There's no meat on a baby chimp. So try and get a few extra shillings and people buy them because they're sorry for them or to attract visitors to their hotels. And, you know, once you've looked into those pleading eyes, you feel, I feel that I can't turn away. So we established these sanctuaries, which are a nightmare. They're terribly expensive. We can't release the baby chimps because they don't know how to behave because wild chimps are territorial and aggressive so we have to care for them but you know we do use the chimps to educate the local people we've also built a dispensary a little school we employ as many of the local people as we can so we've boosted their their economy and you remain nevertheless incredibly optimistic
29:59Dr Jane Goodall:about it all don't you i mean one can see that one can see the kind of light in your eyes about it. Is that because you believe, because you have faith in God, or you believe that somehow it will happen anyway?
30:14Sue Lawley:Well, this is why I wrote this new book, you know, Reason for Hope. And I think that the hope lies in each one of us. And we have to realize that we as individuals matter. And we've got to stop leaving all the decisions to the governments and the industries. Because as individuals use collectively as we become increasingly aware of the problems of the world, the environmental and the social ones, you know, if we act together, we can make change more quickly than having laws introduced from the top. And indeed, those laws often don't work.
30:45Dr Jane Goodall:I mean, people will collect together at earth summits and say they're going to do all sorts of things. And then some nations simply don't do them.
30:51Sue Lawley:That's exactly right. So, you know, this is why I've developed this Roots and Shoots program for young people, which is hands-on action to make the world around you a better place. Roots make a firm foundation. Shoots seem tiny, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls. And if we see the brick walls as all the problems inflicted on the planet, the pollution and the spreading of the desert and the hole in the ozone layer and all these other environmental problems, overpopulation, overconsumption, crime, cruelty, I mean, what a mess we've made. We have been terribly bad stewards. And so we have to wake up.
31:26Sue Lawley:Record number seven. Walking in the air, well, the snowman. I mean, to me, that's Christmas. And Christmas has always meant an enormous lot to all of my family. I've only missed about two Christmases being at home with my mother, ever. And since I saw Snowman, I think when it first came out, Christmas isn't Christmas without the snowman.
31:49Dr Jane Goodall:We're walking in the air We're floating in the moonlit sky
32:01Dr Jane Goodall:The people far below are sleeping as we fly
32:11Dr Jane Goodall:I'm holding very tight I'm riding in the midnight blue
32:23Dr Jane Goodall:I'm finding I can fly so high above with you
32:48Dr Jane Goodall:Peter Orte singing Walking in the Air, accompanied by the Sinfonia of London from the soundtrack of The Snowman. You'd be very well trained, Jane Goodall, for life on a desert island, wouldn't you? I suppose I would, yes. Creature comforts are not particularly important to you?
33:04Sue Lawley:No, they're not. I mean, am I allowed trees on my island or does it have to be sand and rocks?
33:08Dr Jane Goodall:Well, I think it's as you imagine it to be. You tell me, what does your island look like?
33:13Sue Lawley:Well, if I can have one of these wonderful little islands like, you know, Hawaiian islands and things like that where there's lovely forest and waterfalls and mountains and bits of mist and beautiful flowers and things like that, I'd be totally happy, I think, for quite a long time.
33:28Dr Jane Goodall:People often say that you have a kind of peace about you. Do you think that would remain intact in that situation, or would you begin to panic?
33:37Sue Lawley:Well, you know, it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, you can't tell how strong the teabag is until you put hot water on it. I don't know how long I would survive, but I think quite a long time.
33:50Dr Jane Goodall:Last record.
33:52Sue Lawley:Pavarotti. A lot of the music I've chosen has been a bit sort of heart-tugging for me, but Pavarotti just makes me swell with joy in life, and I see him with his hanky, which he waves around, and his little thank you when people applaud him, and he's larger than life, and he's got a wonderful voice, and he just fills me with joy.
34:27rare
34:28Dr Jane Goodall:15 my
34:31Sue Lawley:meeting thechter
34:43Dr Jane Goodall:chter Thank you.
35:13Dr Jane Goodall:Luciano Pavarotti singing Recondita Ammonia from Puccini's Tosca with the Orquestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orquestra del Teatro dell 'Opera di Roma, conducted by Zubin Mehta. If you could only take one of those eight records, Jane, which one would you choose?
35:31Sue Lawley:Am I allowed to take the entire thing with me?
35:34Dr Jane Goodall:Well, that's a question we don't answer, really.
35:37Sue Lawley:Because if I was, I'd probably take the under milk wood just because it's got so much about human life in it.
35:43Dr Jane Goodall:What about your book? You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare waiting for you. Lord of the Rings. And what about your luxury?
35:51Sue Lawley:Well, is paper and pencil a luxury?
35:54Dr Jane Goodall:Yes, it is. Then I would take a paper and pencil. Jane Goodall, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Thank you.
36:35Thank you.
From the publisher
Sue Lawley talks to the primatologist Dr Jane Goodall in a programme first broadcast in 2000. Jane Goodall died in October 2025, at the age of 91.
