Jane Goodall brief biography

Jane Morris Goodall was born April 3, 1934 in London, England.  For over five decades she has studied the social behavior of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.  She holds a PhD in ethology from Cambridge University.  Jane has worked tirelessly for animal welfare, conservation, and a variety of humanitarian causes.
 
Jane established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) in 1977 to continue the research at Gombe for the protection of chimpanzees and their habitats. There are now nineteen JGI offices around the world aimed at the broader goals of preserving the environment, protecting animals, and improving the lives of people. 
 
Since 1991 Jane’s Roots & Shoots program has offered young people an opportunity to make the world a better place through youth-led community action programs.  Roots & Shoots programs are currently active in nearly 100 countries.
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Doctor and Dame

Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Jane Goodall’s biography is her ability to navigate deftly between the objective, scientific realm and the intuitive, spiritual realm. In this sense, her life’s work offers a great example for approaching life in a holistic fashion—through reason and feeling.  It was through this balance that Jane would redefine man while studying wild chimpanzees in Africa. 
 
Jane’s teenage years were filled with a curiosity for nature, especially anything that moved. The most influential animal in her young life was her intelligent dog Rusty.  Later in life, as she was studying wild chimpanzees, she came under heavy criticism from scientists for her desire to connect personally with wild chimpanzees by interacting with them in dangerously close contact.  They criticized her for taking a “Saint Francis of Assisi approach.”  She would later say, “In a way, my dog Rusty gave me the courage of my convictions.”
 
It was Jane’s courage that would allow her not only close observation but an almost intimate coexistence with her beloved chimpanzees.  That close contact began with David Greybeard featured in the painting above.  It was David whom Jane observed using grass to “fish” termites out from a mound.  The scientific community took notice.  Up until that point, it was believed only humans were capable of using tools.  So, began Jane’s meteoric rise as a scientist.
 
Jane’s charmed life was not without hardship.  Her first marriage ended in divorce.  She remarried and her second husband died of cancer.  Devastated, Jane returned to Gombe’s ancient forests for emotional healing.  There on a hike to reacquaint with familiar chimp friends she “slipped into a state of heightened awareness.”  Her senses perceived the environment beyond even her own normal highly observational capacities as she entered into what can only be deemed a mystic experience. 
I struggled afterward to recall the experience, that self was utterly absent:  I and the chimpanzees, the earth and the trees and air, seemed to merge, to become one with the spirit power of life itself… There are (windows) carved out by Western science, their panes polished by a succession of brilliant minds…and windows through which the mystics and the holy men of the East, and the founders of the great world religions, have gazed as they searched for the meaning and purpose of our life on earth.
 
Through the years Jane has achieved a great deal and received many accolades and awards.  On the one end of the spectrum, her doctorate at Cambridge and honorary doctorate degrees at seven other universities lay testimony to her scientific reason.  On the other end of the spectrum we find testimony to her compassionate feeling through the host of environmental, humanitarian, and peace making awards, including England’s highest honor, being named Dame of the British Empire.
 
In her children’s book, My Life With Chimpanzees, Jane offers inspiration to youth, “Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world. They are changing it already.” 
 
If even a small number of young and old alike, change it in fraction of the way this doctor and dame did, what a dramatically more peaceful world it would be.

Jane's beloved dog Rusty