The Life Scientific: Jane Goodall

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0:30at Whole Foods Market. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end clothes, it's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. Today on the BBC World Service, we're bringing you a special episode of Discovery. Last week, we received the news that Jane Goodall had died. Jane was not only a pioneering scientist who transformed our understanding of chimpanzees, but also an extraordinary human being whose compassion and wisdom touched millions around the world. So we wanted to revisit this conversation I had with her.

1:13It's a chance to hear, in her own words, the story of her remarkable life and the passion that drove her work. Jane Goodall shot to fame in December 1965 when she appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Through magazine and newspaper articles, scientific papers, books, documentary films, she's introduced millions of people around the world to the social and emotional lives of the wild chimpanzees of Gombe in eastern Tanzania. When the alpha female Flo died back in 1972, she was so well loved she had an obituary in the times. Jane's observations made over many years change the way we viewed our closest animal relatives and made us think about what it is to be human.

1:57She's worked tirelessly to liberate chimpanzees that were being kept in captivity for medical research or in zoos and her global youth program Roots and Shoots has inspired and empowered millions of people around the world to care about their environment and to protect not only chimpanzees but all wild animals and wild places. Jane Goodall, welcome to The Life Scientific. Or should I say, does that sound at all close? That was pretty good. Let me answer you.

2:37That's wonderful. Well, it wasn't the full blown one because I thought I might destroy the setting on the mic. But then that means this is me, Jane. It's the distance greeting. And you hear that sound and you're far away in the forest and you think, ah, there's my mom calling. I want to go and see her. It keeps the groups together. But then there's a different greeting. If I'm coming to greet you, you're the male, I'm the female. Females are the subordinate ones. So I'm a little bit nervous. And I greet you like this.

3:18and then if you respond by reaching out and gently patting me on the head then I'm encouraged and I go up and I put my arms around you and you put your arms around me and I kiss into your neck and that's the close-up greeting. Well Jen I mentioned that that National Geographic cover picture you also appeared of course in a TV documentary narrated by Orson Welles entitled Miss Goodall and the wild chimpanzees. There were the famous clips of you walking barefoot on the thick jungle branches, playing and wrestling with baby chimps. It did make your fieldwork look incredibly romantic, was it? Well, for the first three months, all I saw of chimpanzees was either distant black shapes or retreating bottoms, because they took one look at this weird white ape and fled.

4:11And I only had money for six months. So it was a very nerve wracking time. Because, you know, if I didn't see something exciting, A, I would have let Lewis Leakey down. He was the one who got the money for me. And B, my dream would be ended. The photographs that then appeared in National Geographic magazine were taken by her ex-husband. Yes. And they are amazing. But is it true that you didn't really like being photographed? I still hate it. After all these years? Yes. Well, Jengodal, you and the chimps of Gombe are, of course, famous now. So tell me, what first took you to Africa? Well, first of all, you know, the reason I got to Africa was an invitation from a school friend.

4:59And I worked as a waitress to save up enough money for the passage. I'd meanwhile done a secretarial course because I had to get money, had to earn a living, no money for university. But anyhow, after I'd been with my friend for a couple of weeks, somebody said, if you're interested in animals, you should meet Lewis Leakey. So I telephoned him, the Natural History Museum, he was curator, and said I wanted to see him. He says I was very shy. It was not something I normally would dare to do. But he was clearly impressed by how much I knew because I'd read every single book I could find about African animals.

5:40So he gave me a job. I mean, two days before I met him, he'd lost his secretary suddenly. He needed a secretary. And there, that boring old secretarial course, you see how things fit in. It's amazing. And while I was being his secretary, he realized more and more how passionate I was. That's why he invited me on this amazing three-month safari to Olderby Gorge, searching for fossils. And all the animals were there then, meeting a rhino, just so close, meeting a young male lion. And I think it was because of those meetings Leakey decided I was the person he'd been looking for, to go and study chimpanzees.

6:25Nobody had done it. Nobody knew anything about wild chimpanzees. But he felt that there was a common ancestor six million or so years ago, ape-like, human-like. And so he reckoned that if Jane can find behaviors similar in chimpanzees and modern humans, then maybe that behavior was in the common ancestor all those millions of years ago. and that he felt would enable him to better imagine how those early Stone Age humans behaved, whose fossils he was digging up. So there you were in Gombe, Jane, this wonderful, yet I imagine very challenging environment. Were you ever scared? Well, there was a time when they lost their fear, but they didn't like me, and so they treated me as though I was a predator.

7:18and when they're up in the trees and they're screaming at you with those canines showing and they've got all the hair bristling and they're swaying the branches, they are extremely intimidating. And, you know, I knew they were very much stronger than me. But fortunately, while they were actually doing this, I wasn't afraid. I just thought, well, I'll pretend I'm not interested in them and I pretended to eat leaves and eventually they went away. It was after they'd gone that my legs were a bit weak and wobbly. That you'd survived it. And then, you know, after a bit, I think they thought, oh, well, she's not going away and she doesn't seem to be harmful.

8:04And so then gradually this aggression gave place to acceptance. How did they first react to you, a young adult female human sitting amongst them? Well, it took four months before I could get reasonably close to one. And it wasn't really for a year that I could actually sit among them. They'd just never seen anything like this weird white ape. And they're very conservative, as I've said, and so they ran away. But finally, thanks to one beloved chimpanzee, David Greybeard, who was the first one to lose his fear of me. and once David Graby had lost his fear then he really helped me to get closer to the others because if he was in a group ready to run and he just sat there calmly I think the others must have thought oh well she can't be so frightening after all And do you remember the day you first saw him making a tool?

9:02Oh vividly, I mean it was so incredible I was a bit cold and a bit depressed and then I saw this black shape on a termite mound and I still needed to use my binoculars. I wasn't that close. But I could see this black hand picking grass stems and pushing them down into the termite mound and pulling them out with termites clinging on with their jaws. And the following day I saw him pick a leafy twig and strip the leaves. So not only was he using objects as tools but modifying those objects to make tools. And, you know, it honestly didn't surprise me very much because I'd read Wolfgang Köhler's Mentality of Apes.

9:48He studied a captive colony who definitely could use objects as tools. But, of course, all the scientists in their lordly way said, oh, well, that's because human behavior has rubbed off on them or they've been taught or something. and so I knew that this was very exciting to see it in wild chimpanzees and of course Leakey was over the moon because this is something he hardly dreamed of He said something like we have to now redefine either redefine tool or redefine man or accept chimpanzees as humans Yes, because Osborne had defined man as man the toolmaker And suddenly now we're not the only species that can do that Oh, no.

10:31I mean, we know that there's so many animals that can use and even make tools. Birds, the corvids, incredibly brilliant at tool using. And then there's the sea otter and these amazing octopuses that several species, which will take two halves of a clamshell if they want to go hunting with the snow rocks to protect their soft bodies. They just walk along the ocean floor with these half shells held by two tentacles on each side, wiggle their way into one half and reach out and pull the other half over them. So they've made a house. It is incredible. Presumably, I mean, this ability in these different animals shows that they're capable of abstract thought.

11:17They can think what they might need in order to achieve a particular goal and plan and do something about it. Yeah, that's right. And can you believe, honestly, can you believe that when Leakey finally sent me to Cambridge, it was about two years after I'd been with the chimps, because he said I had to have a degree and there wasn't time for an undergraduate degree. So he plunged me into doing a PhD in ethology. I didn't even know what ethology was. I couldn't Google anything in those days. Of course, it's simply the study of behavior. So I was very nervous. and to have so many of these professors telling me I'd done everything wrong.

11:58Chimpanzees should have had numbers, not names. And I could not talk about them having personalities, minds capable of problem solving and certainly not emotions. Those, I was told, were unique to us. We were separate. There was a difference of kind between us and other animals. That's truly what I was told. but you know I'd learned as a child from my dog that that wasn't true but you know I was really lucky because one of the three most eminent ethologists in Europe at the time was Professor Robert Hind and he was my supervisor and at first he was you know he was really mean about all these things but then he came to Gombe and he said in two weeks I learned more about animal behavior than all the rest of my life So he actually, he did something which was so amazingly useful for me.

12:54He taught me how to write about the chimpanzees, what I knew to be true, but in a scientific way. He taught me the value of objective thinking. Yes. Well, of course, you did get a paper published in the prestigious journal Nature. But after your PhD, you went back to Gombe and spent a lot of time studying chimpanzee relationships, particularly the strong bonds between family members. As you say, you wrote several, actually, very acclaimed books on your studies, which introduced the world to the chimpanzees of Gombe. And as I mentioned in the introduction, there was one chimpanzee in particular, the wonderful mother, the alpha mother, Flo, who ended up when she died having an obituary written up in the Times.

13:39Yes. And, you know, the most fun thing, when that first book, In the Shadow of Man, was published, I was in a tube in London and there were three city gents in their bowler hats and rolled umbrellas and they were talking about Flo and David Gravey and it was such fun they had no idea I was there you know they didn't know what I know you didn't let them know who you were no no no I don't you remember I was shy of course yes sorry and by the way this year is the 60th anniversary of when I first set foot in Gombe. 60 years. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable, isn't it? Goodness me. But yes, the families.

14:20I mean, that was for me the most exciting to learn how the offspring stay bonded to the mother. And you get this long childhood, five years of suckling, although less frequently, riding on mum, sleeping with her at night before the next baby's born. And I think it's important because just like our children, they have a lot to learn. You know, their tool-using behavior isn't instinct. It's probably instinct to manipulate objects, but not to fish for termites. They learn these cultures by watching and imitating and practicing. Do you witness the same range of emotions in chimpanzees that we see in humans?

15:03Yeah, I would say exactly the same. You know, it was pretty shocking to find that, like us, they can be brutal and even wage a kind of warfare. But they can also be loving, altruistic, compassionate. I mean, they show both sides of our nature. Well, Jane Goodall, your observations of wild chimpanzees certainly changed our view of these primates, perhaps the way we humans view ourselves. to what extent did the time you spent in Gombe as a young woman change you I wonder well I think about that it's very difficult to know I don't think it changed me much at all I'd always all my life before that loved to be alone loved to be out in nature I wasn't surprised that chimps had these emotions it was fascinating to realize how many of their gestures are like ours so you can watch them without knowing anything about them.

16:03And when they greet with a kiss and embrace, they pat one another in reassurance, they hold hands, they seek physical contact to alleviate nervousness or stress. You know, it's so like us. Did you form relationships with particular individuals? Well, some I liked more than others. You know, they're so human, there's some you like and some you don't. And, of course, I was... I mean, David Graby, first of all, he took a banana from my hand and eventually he let me groom him. And Figgan let me play with him. When I see myself tumbling about with an eight-year-old chimp who's much stronger than me, I'm sort of slightly shocked today to see that.

16:53Yes. Never do it today. No. Most of your early work, Jane, focused on the kindness that chimpanzees showed towards one another. But in the 1970s, I know you witnessed some terrible violence. Were you shocked to see chimpanzees acting in this way? It was absolutely horrible, absolutely horrible. And what made it worse is, you know, all the chimps I came to know so well were one big community. and then maybe they just got too many males for them to cope with because they have a very strict dominance hierarchy. So a small number of males split off with some females and they took over an area in the south of the range that they previously all had shared.

17:40And after four years, the relations between the males of the two groups became extremely hostile. And so the males of the larger community started attacking the males in the south one by one and leaving them to die of their wounds. And it was horrible because it was like a civil war. They were killing individuals they had previously played with and groomed with. It was really horrible. And, you know, the wounds infected were so dreadful. Did it change your view of chimpanzees? Yes, I thought they were like us, but nicer. Then I realised that they were even more like us because they had this brutal side as well.

18:27Yes. Eventually, why did you leave Gombe? Well, in 1986, by then there were about six or seven chimpanzee study sites, people studying chimps in different parts of Africa. So I helped organize this conference to bring the scientists from these areas together. We had a session on conservation, and we had a session on conditions in some captive situations, and it was a shock. It was a four-day conference. I went as a scientist with my PhD in a research station and thinking, you know, what a wonderful life I had. And I left as an activist. And honestly, people say, how did you make that decision?

19:13I didn't. I was changed. I knew I had to try and do something, even though I had no idea what I could do. And it's been a very, very long battle fighting the use of chimps in medical research. and I'm not quite sure why the labs let me in, but they did. It was so awful. I think it's the worst things I've ever had to do. But instead of being extremely aggressive to these horrible, cruel people torturing chimps like that, I told them about the Gombe chimps. I showed them film and then they themselves could see the difference. It wasn't me, you know, arguing with them because I honestly think the only way you change people is if you get into their heart.

20:01It's no good arguing. They're trying to defend themselves then. But if you creep subtly into people's hearts, then they change from within. At least that's the hope. And finally, in the US, all 400 chimps used by National Institutes of Health are now either in sanctuaries or waiting for the sanctuaries to be built. and no chimps are used in medical research in America, I don't think, although there are some in private hands. When did it become clear then to you that the chimpanzees in Gombe were at risk too? Well, that came to a head when I flew over the tiny Gombe National Park. It's really smallest in Tanzania and it had been part of the equatorial forest belt that stretched all the way from East Africa to the West African coast.

20:49and in 1990 when I flew over it was just this tiny island of forest surrounded by completely bare hills all the trees gone people had overused farmland it was infertile cutting down trees even on the steep slopes and their desperation to grow food to feed their families and that's when it hit me if we don't help the people to find ways of living without destroying their environment we can't even try to save the chimps so that's when JGI started our Take Care of Takari program around Gombe JGI is the Jane Goodall Institute what does it involve? We selected a little group of I think it was seven Tanzanians didn't even have PhDs and they went into the 12 villages around Gombe and listened to the people and asked what they want so it was very different from what was normally happening a group of arrogant white people saying, we're coming to help you and this is what we're going to do.

21:51We've put the tools of conservation into the people's hands. They've used smartphones, they go and monitor the health of their village forest reserves, which is where most of Tanzania's wild chimps live. They're not protected. That program is now in six other African countries where JGI works. Nevertheless, there has been this catastrophic decline in chimpanzee numbers. Do you think it's possible to reverse this trend? Well, there are some very big areas in the Congo. And, you know, we're working with the wild chimps and sensitizing the people. We're using our Roots and Shoots program, which is in all the schools around the forest where we work to save the wild chimps.

22:36So this is a global program that empowers young people to take action on that to protect the environment. It began in 91. It's groups of young people choosing three projects, one to help people, one to help animals, one to help environment, because it's all interconnected. It's in 65 countries now, growing all the time. Individual actions do make a difference, but can they make enough of a difference to stop us from destroying our planet? Well, it's the main message of Roots and Shoots, which I think is for everybody, that every day we live, we make a difference. and when people say what can I do I say well think about the consequences of the choices you make each day what do you buy where does it come from did it harm the environment cruelty to animals child slave labor and if everybody makes ethical choices that at least begins to move us towards a better world but the problem is to get enough people making ethical choices you've got to alleviate poverty because if you're really poor you can't you don't have the luxury of making a choice you just have to buy the cheapest yeah if you could change one thing then what would it be well start respecting the environment and animals start realizing that it's our foolish greedy selfish behavior it's our materialistic lifestyle or it's the desperation of poverty that have created these conditions.

24:04But also the factory farms in our countries, they should not be allowed to continue. They harm the environment, billions of animals needing to be fed, clear the environment, grow the grain to feed them, use fossil fuels to get the grain to the animals, the animals to the abattoir, and then animals produce methane gas in their digestion, like we all do, but these are billions of animals adding to the greenhouse gases. You know, they're not only terribly cruel, but they're very environmentally destructive. And so we need to have no more wild animals sold in these wildlife meat markets. We have to stop this treatment of domestic animals who are individuals with personalities.

24:52And do you know pigs, for example, just one example. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. And I always tell people to Google, not Picasso the artist, but Pigcaso. And the number of people who've Googled Pigcaso and told me they'll never eat bacon again is amazing. So, you know, when you want to change people's minds, get to the heart. It's such a good message. Well, I can think of few people who've done more than you to try and capture the hearts and minds, certainly for the next generation to try and protect wildlife, wild places. For several decades now, I believe you spent more than 300 days a year travelling, on tour, performing in front of huge audiences.

25:36Where are you happiest these days? At the family home in Bournemouth, travelling the world or back with the chimpanzees in Gombe? Well, Gombe is very different. As I said, I don't know the chimps anymore. and you know I don't want to go climbing up to the tops of the mountains anymore I'm pretty fit but I've got a knee that sometimes it just it's been doing it for years and years but it suddenly conks out I don't want to cause people all the trouble of falling around hurting myself high up in a mountain but if they're low down then they're usually tourists there and that I don't like either so I do like being out in the forest but it's when I'm here in Bournemouth, in the house I grew up in from the war onwards, that I can really be me.

26:26You know, when I'm going through any airport, I cannot go through an airport without somebody coming up and saying, are you Jane Goodall? You look like Jane Goodall. Can I have a selfie? Could you sign this? You know, but here in Bournemouth, well, there's one or two people who recognize me, but basically I'm with my family. There's six of us in the house. And I'm just me, just who I know I am, an ordinary person who's had good luck and managed to do quite interesting things in my life. Jane Goodall, it's been an absolute delight. Thank you very much for sharing your life scientific. Well, thanks very much for putting up with me for so long.

27:10And, you know, chimpanzees don't say goodbye. They just walk away. Isn't that funny? How did a boy called Jimmy become a billionaire from posting videos? On Good Bad Billionaire, we're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr Beast, made his fortune. He's buried himself in a coffin for days. Counted to 100 ,000 on camera. And even recreated Squid Games, all in an attempt to go viral on the internet. But it all started when he gave a homeless man$10 ,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism? Or is he just the king of the attention economy? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire.

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