“ A defender of the earth ”: how Jane Goodall inspired the generations of scientists
Jane Goodall’s transformer impact on the field of primatology, inspiring generations of researchers and the enlargement of the understanding of the public of science and nature were fully exposed while reactions to his death took place on Wednesday.
“There is this saying that we are all on the shoulders of the giants. She is one of these giants for me and for most primatologists, I would say an incredibly good model,” said Ammie Kalan, primatologist at the University of Victoria.
Kalan said that she had spoken of Goodall to a group of first -year anthropology students last week, using it as an example of a pioneer who helped shape the field. Goodall, who was 91, was active until the end and in the middle of a word tour at the time of his death.
On Friday, she was to speak at the University of California and had recently went to Canada, speaking to Toronto and Ottawa in early September.
“You do not need to have a diploma to find out more about nature, you can learn as I did. I had a notebook of a nature. I drew small insects and butterflies and the birds I saw, and that makes you a biologist”, she on stage At the Meridian Hall in Toronto last month, answering a question from a young woman on how to start biology.
A long pioneer career
Goodall was only 29 years old when National Geographic published his emblematic research on the life of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream Reserve (now a national park) in Tanzania. The story of 1963 revealed for the first time how chimpanzees raised their young hierarchies and organized communities and even how they used tools.
But beyond scientific breakthroughs, Goodall has become an icon through his writing which described his work experiences very well in the tropical forest and faced with arduous conditions involving malaria, snakes and other perils in the beautiful backdrop of Lake Tanganyika.
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He also challenged the opinions and approaches established in a scientific community dominated by men, something that Goodall, since the start of his career, was not afraid to confront.
Kerry Bowman, a bioethist at the University of Toronto who personally knew Goodall, said that one of the first things she did to Gombe was to give the names of the chimpanzees. She obtained a decline in the scientific community which, at the time, did not adopt such personal approaches.
“She has really been able to see beauty in non-human life, chimpanzees and others,” he said.
“And she was able to say, yes, I focus on science and yes, I am a scientist. But these creatures are magnificent and we love them and they are part of the history of the world.”
Bowman sat the board of directors of the world branch of Jane Goodall Institute, which also has campaign branches dispersed worldwide, including in Canada. The world non -profit organization was founded in 1977 and is a vehicle for plea work on the nature of Goodall, the financing and promotion of primates and other animals.
“She goes far beyond being someone who studies chimpanzees,” said Kalan.
“She has become a kind of defender of the earth, I would say, someone who really demonstrates and lived his life by trying to explain the importance of enhancing the natural world.”
The Jane Goodall Institute has become one of the largest advocacy and conservation organizations in the world, with chapters in 35 countries. The scope of Goodall is so wide that Bowman said he had even traveled to North Korea, one of the most isolated countries, for work related to the Institute.
“She is living proof of the power of the individual. This is what she would say so often when she spoke – don’t be defeated because you are a person,” said Bowman.
“It’s just incredible how good she has brought good to this world.”
With Anand Ram and Jill English files
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