Bill Moyers Journal (2007-2010); 1347; Dr. Jane Goodall

This week on Bill Moyer's Journal. Jane Goodall, on saving the natural world, and learning from the chimpanzees she made famous. And some contestants of her secret childhood passion. I was in love with Tarzan, I was so jealous of that wimpy Jane. I knew she'd be a, I would have been a better mate for Tarzan. I was jealous. Funding for Bill Moyer's Journal is provided by the Partridge Foundation, a John and Paulie Gut Charitable Fund, Park Foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. The Colbert Foundation, the Herb Alpert Foundation, Marilyn and Bob Clements and the Clements Foundation,

the Fetzer Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, and by our sole corporate sponsor, Mutual of America, providing retirement products and services to employers and individuals since 1945. Mutual of America, your retirement company. From our studios in New York, Bill Moyer's. Welcome to the Journal. When Jane Goodall walked into our building this week, faces lit up. Our security chief told me she does animal rescue work after hours because of Jane Goodall. Our stage manager whispered into my ear, she's been my hero for decades. And the nine-year-old daughter of our editor hurried to the studio, because she's writing a schoolbook report on Jane Goodall. Is there anyone who doesn't know who Jane Goodall is?

This pioneering woman that claimed the world over has been much of her life negotiating an intense and intimate relationship with the chimpanzees of the Gombe National Park in East Africa. Her research produced landmark studies of chimpanzee life and society, and how they relate to our own. And of course, there have been all those wonderful television specials for PBS and National Geographic. It's as if we all grew up with her and the chimps. Soon as I got to know these individuals, it was quite clear how different they were. And they had emotion where we saw a sharp line dividing human from non-human. That line has become blurred. In closing the gap between the animal world and us, Jane Goodall helped us understand more clearly our own past. She inspired us to a deeper appreciation of our responsibility to the planet. In the course of her career, she herself evolved from a youthful enthusiast of animals to an observer of primates to scientist and global activist for all of life on earth.

Making the world a better place for all of us. Can we make the world a better place? Yes! Her Jane Goodall Institute works for the worldwide protection of habitat. And her program, Roots and Shoots, is in 114 countries teaching and training young people to create projects to improve and protect the environment. She travels more than 300 days a year, challenging audiences to see themselves as caretakers of the natural world. All is not yet lost, she says, and has a new book to prove it. Written with Thane Maynard and Gail Hudson entitled Hope for Animals and Their World. Jane Goodall, welcome to the journal. Oh, thank you. This life you're living now is such a contrast between the life of the Jane Goodall we first met, living virtually alone in the forest in the company of chimpanzees, sitting for hours quietly, taking notes, observing. And now, 300 days a year you're on the road, you're speaking, you're lobbying, you're organizing,

what's, why, what's driving you? It actually all began in 1986. And, you know, in 1986, in the beginning of the year, I was in a dream world. I was out there with these amazing chimpanzees. I was in the forest I dreamed about as a child. I was doing some writing and a little bit of teaching once a year. And then at this conference, it brought together people who were studying chimpanzees across Africa and a few who were working with captive chimps noninvasively. It was in Chicago and we were together for four days and we had one session on conservation and it was so shocking to see right across their range in Africa. Forests were going, human populations growing, the beginning of the bush meat trade, the commercial hunting of wild animals for food, chimpanzees caught in snares. Population plummeted from somewhere between one and two million at the turn of the last century to at that time, about 400,000.

So I came out, well, I couldn't go back to that old beautiful, wonderful life. I was just, my team and I were just looking the other day about that old, great classic National Geographic Special, which shows you meeting the chimps. For the first time, do you remember that? Among the wild chimpanzees. Yes. That's still one of the best films you go shot at my first husband. It's, I love that film. Then in 1960, a daring young English woman set out to sort fiction from truth. She had been warned you'll never get near the chimpanzees, but she was determined to try. Her name, Jane Goodall, she was 26 years old and destined to make scientific history. Were the animals not affected by the presence of a camera crew? Well, once they've got used to you, they seem to pay very little attention.

It's something which has surprised visiting scientists who felt that the chimps' behavior must be compromised by our presence, but they accept you and they by and large ignore you. Do you miss them? I miss being out there, I miss being out in the forest. I do go back twice a year, not for very long, but a lot of my old friends will nearly all are gone. The very original ones have all gone. They lived over 60 years, but still, you know, we're now getting on to the great grandchildren. And there's a research team following them, learning about them. I've long wanted to ask you about the chimpanzee you loved best. David Greybeard? What was there about David Greybeard? Well, first of all, he was the very first chimpanzee who let me come close, who lost his fear. And he helped to introduce me to this magic world out in the forest, because the other chimps would see David sitting there not running away, and so gradually they'd think, well, she can't be so scary after all.

But he had a wonderful, gentle disposition. He was really loved by other chimps. No ranking ones would go to him for protection. He wasn't terribly high ranking, but he had a very high ranking friend, Goliath. And there was just something about him. He's got a very handsome face, his eyes wide apart, and this beautiful grey beard. When you and David Greybeard were commuting, what language were you speaking? Well, we didn't, I tried always not to use chimp language in the wild, because we really do try and look through a window. And now we know how dangerous it is to transmit disease from us to them. So we keep further away, which is sad for me. But I asked the question, because it seemed to me watching the documentaries, watching the films, is that there was some language being spoken, some prehistory language, the means of communication, without words that communicated even feelings. This was this wonderful situation when right in the early days,

I was following David Greybeard, and I thought I'd lost him in a tangle of undergrowth, and I found him sitting as though he was waiting. Maybe he was, he was on his own, I don't know. And I picked up this red palm nut and held it out on my palm, and he turned his face away. So I held my palm closer, and then he turned, he looked directly into my eyes. He reached out, hold out your hand with a nut on it. He took it, he didn't want it, he dropped it, but at the same time he very gently squeezed my fingers, which is how I chimp reassures. So there was this communication, he understood that I was acting in good faith, he didn't want it, but he wanted to reassure me that he understood. So we understood each other without the use of words. And where in the long journey we have made, do you think this empathy comes from where does it come? It's the bun between mother and child, which is really for us and for chimps and other primates.

It's the root of all social, all the expressions of social behavior you can sort of see mirrored in the mother child relationship. I know that cruelty, you could set a cruelty, the worst human sin, right? I mean, if you wrote, once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then if we knowingly and deliberately inflict suffering on that creature, we are equally guilty, whether it be human or animal, we brutalize ourselves. But you learn from the chimpanzees that animals can be cruel too. Yes, but I think a chimpanzee doesn't have the intellectual ability or I don't think it does to deliberately inflict pain. You know, we can plan a torture, whether it's physical or mental. We plan it and in cold blood, we can execute it. The chimpanzee's brutality is always, you know, the spur of the moment it's some trigger in the environment that causes this craze almost of violence.

You saw gangs attacking, gangs attacking single females. You saw cannibalism among the chimpanzees. Including females who eat the newborn females of members of their own community. Although there's other food available. You've seen, you describe primal warfare among the chimps. What do we take from that? You know, since you're looking at them to see what we can learn about us and about our evolution, what conclusion do you reach about their aggression? Well, some people have reached the conclusion that war and violence is inevitable in ourselves. I reach the conclusion that I do believe we have brought aggressive tendencies with us through our long human evolutionary path. I mean, you can't look around the world and not realize that we can be and often are extremely brutal and aggressive. And equally, we have inherited tendencies of love, compassion, and altruism because they're there in the chimps, so we brought those with us. So it's like each one of us has this dark side and the more noble side

and I guess it's up to each one of us to push one down and develop the other. You even wrote ones that it was your study of chimpanzees that crystallized your own belief in the ultimate destiny toward which humans are still evolving. What is that? What is that ultimate destiny? And how did the chimps contribute to your understanding? Because when you have the thing that's more like us than anyhow, they're living the thing on the planet, that helps you to realize the differences. You know, how are we different? And so we have this kind of language. And so that's led to our intellectual development, that's led to refining of morals and the questions about meaning and life and everything. So I think we're moving or should be moving towards some kind of spiritual evolution where we understand without having to ask why. But why is the fundamental question, isn't it?

One of the things that makes us human is we can ask why. Yeah, but maybe we ask too often. Maybe we should sometimes be content with just a knowing and being satisfied with the knowing without saying, why do I know? Where does your own composer come from? Possibly from months and months on my own in the wilderness. But I think I had it before. As a little girl. But I have an image of you in my mind from reading about you, a little girl in Bournemouth, England, reading relentlessly from Dr. DuLittel and Tarsen. And is that those are true stories? Absolutely. I've still got all the books. They're still there in my room. Is that where the imagination was formed about Africa? Yes. Because I read the Tarsen books when I was growing up. You did something about what you grew up with, all right? Well, yes, it was a passion. And I had a wonderful mother. I attribute a lot of what I've done and who I am to her wisdom, the way she brought me up.

It was very supportive. She found the books. She knew I would be interested in animals, animals, animals. And when everybody was laughing at me for dreaming of going to Africa, I was 11. World War II was raging. We didn't have any money. We couldn't even afford a bicycle. My father was off fighting. And Africa was still thought of as the dark continent, filled of danger. And I was the wrong sex. That was a girl. And girls weren't supposed to dream that way then. You know, I should be dreaming of being a nurse or a secretary or something. Well, some young girl had dreamed of that because she grew up to be Jane of Tarsen and Jane, right? I was in love with Tarsen. I was so jealous of that wimpy Jane. I knew she'd be a... I would have been a better mate for Tarsen. I was jealous. You would have made a better mate for Tarsen and I would have made a Tarsen. But anyway, you know, my mother never laughed at my dreams. She would say, if you really want something, you work hard, you take advantage of opportunity and you never give up. You will find a way.

And that's... See, how lucky. Since I'm now working so much with young people. Because I could kill myself trying to save chimps and forests. But if we're not raising new generations to be better stewards than we've been, then we may as well give up. So I can go to kids living in poverty in Tanzania or in a city Bronx and tell them my story and say, follow your dreams. And they write to me and say, you taught us it because you did it. I can do it too. And that is just right. Roots and shoots, your program of training on people to be active in conservation movies. That began in Tanzania, didn't it? Yes, it did. It began with 16 high school students in 91. And it emerged from Tanzania as a very new sort of thing in New York for the Albert Schweitzer Centennial at the UN. That was 93, I think. 93 or 94. And that's when it started to grow so that it's now 114 countries,

all ages, preschool through university. The adults are taking part in prisons, staff of big corporations. And it's basically two, three projects to make the world better. One, for your own human community. Two, for animals, including domestic ones and three for the environment. With a theme of learning to live in peace and harmony among ourselves between cultures and religions and nations and between us and the natural world. So youth drives it. They choose the projects. Are those young people the source of this hope for animals in their world? They're a large part of it. They are a large part of it. And the time is now. I mean, I've never had such, such. My lectures are always full. That's what's nice. I mean, isn't it great that high school students in some inner city area will greet me as I walk in as though I were a pop star?

I mean, that is so amazing. Because all that they've got out of what I've done is a message of hope and the fact that our main messages, you make a difference every day. You matter, your life is important. And this is why they want to come. I met many people who say, well, I was really, I was so depressed. And a friend said, you've got to go and hear Jane. And they come up in the book signing line, which can be three hours. It takes so long. And say, well, I'm not as optimistic as you, but at least, I now realize my life has more value than I thought. And I'm going to do my bit. That's what we need, isn't it? I know the story. But for my audience, tell me what happened to you when you had that very powerful experience in the spring of 1974 when you visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Yes, it was a sort of low time in my life. And there I was. I went into this cathedral.

And as I walked through the door, boxed the carton and hugin' G minor, which is a marvelous piece of music anyway, just suddenly filled the whole cathedral. And the sun was just coming through that rose window. And it's just so powerful a feeling that, you know, how could this amazing cathedral all the people who built it, all the people who had worshipped in it, all the brilliant minds that had been within it? How could that all be chance? It couldn't be chance. But does the meaning come with the DNA or is it something we create out of life? As you have created meaning with your life? I don't think that faith, whatever you're being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life, business, through science. There's so much mystery, there's so much awe. I mean, what is it that makes the chimpanzees do these spectacular displays, rain dancers, I call them, when the waterfall dancers are the foot of this waterfall,

and then sit in the spray and watch the water that's always coming and always going and always here. It's wonder, it's awe. And if they had the same kind of language that we have, I suspect that would turn into a some kind of animistic religion. Your assigned is to observe the world and reaches your scientific observations. Spirituality can't be observed, it can be felt, and you reconcile those two in your own life. But I also had this, I told you, my mother, and she would always, she never saw the conflict between religion and evolution. Lewis Leakey, my great mentor, who dug up early man, you know, he felt the same. So I sort of had this, and then yes, it all came together in the forest. But you have to remember, I didn't start as a scientist. I started as a, well, I wanted to be poet laureate, and I wanted to be a naturalist.

That's how I began. I didn't have any desire to go and be a scientist. Lewis Leakey channeled me there, and I'm delighted he did. I love science, I love analyzing them, and working, making sense of all these observations. So it was the perfect rounding off of who I was and to who I am. There's a poem you wrote that I came across, and recently as I was thinking about this interview, I had never read it or heard it before. But it is, I think, autobiographical of you, and read it for us if you don't mind it. Okay, the old wisdom, I wondered which one you were going to choose. When the night wind makes the pine trees creak, and the pale clouds glide across the dark sky, go out my child, go out and seek your soul, the eternal eye. For all the grasses rustling at your feet, and every flaming star that glitters high above you close up and meet in you, the eternal eye. Yes, my child, go out into the world, walk slow and silent,

comprehending all, and by and by your soul, the universe will know itself, the eternal eye. I'll be back with Jane Goodall to talk more about what gives her hope. But first, we're taking a short break, so you can go to your phone or computer and pledge your support for the programming you see right here on public television. Thank you. For those of you still with us, Jane Goodall and I discussed her program for young environmental activists all over the world. The organization she calls Roots and Shoots. It began in 1991, when a group of local teenagers in Tanzania met with Jane Goodall to talk about a range of problems they witnessed all around them. From the deforestation of their beloved mountains to the welfare of animals, both domestic and wild, including the threatened chimpanzees.

First of all, good afternoon. I wish I could actually speak to all of you in case for Healy, but I've never been very good at languages. However, I can say hello to you in chimpanzee. Chimpanzees remain and always will, my ambassador. They take me into any classroom in the world. And I believe very firmly that children's attitudes towards animals can actually flavor their whole life. With Jane Goodall's guidance, the teenagers sought grassroots solutions and began educating their fellow villagers about the humane treatment of animals. Their small program established a model for future Roots and Shoots programs were a wide. Youth-driven projects fueled by knowledge, compassion, and action.

And why the name Roots and Shoots? Because Jane Goodall said, Roots creep underground everywhere and make a firm foundation. Shoots seem very weak, but to reach the light they can break open brick walls. Imagine that the brick walls are all the problems we have inflicted on our planet. Hundreds of thousands of Roots and Shoots, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world can break through these walls. We can change the world. Every single tree, you know what I do with it? I kiss it. That was Jane Goodall. Some years ago Jane Goodall traveled to California where dedicated conservationists from Roots and Shoots had taken on what seemed like an impossible task. A PBS film entitled Reason for Hope, documented her visit. Take a look. One of the projects which now involves

Roots and Shoots members is a fantastic one in California where thanks largely to the inspiration of one teacher they have reclaimed a creek that was dead and it's now flowing with water and fisherbreeding again. As little kids you learn in school about the other species and you learn, hey you should go out there and help. I remember thinking, so what can I do to help? But I was just never, I could never find the answer. And this has been my answer. We'll be able to see the baby still head actually darting around in the schools. There's down here on all the weekends after school, planting trees, moving litter, capturing fish, bringing them back to our facility, actually doing spawning and doing the real rewarding part of returning the fish actually back to the environment. The claim that virtually was dead and given up on and through 16 years of very difficult hardware have literally saved this animal from extinction. If the baby still head in here,

I think what was particularly remarkable about that project is the incredible determination of the kids. They raised money, they built a hatchery. Then it was condemned, it wouldn't stand up to an earthquake. So they were ordered to pull it down, and there were tears and screams. And then one boy stood up and said, but there's no point being angry, we'll just have to raise the money to do it right. And they raised $500,000. You have every reason to be very, very proud. And to know that what you've done makes a difference, not only to the fish and the creek and the other creatures here, but also will make a difference right around the world. Other people will think they did it, we can do it too. Meeting Jane Goodall's wife-changing experience in the scientific field is like meeting the Pope. It's not about the fish, it's not about the creek.

It's not about the hatchery. It's about the turning and the changing of young lives, and that they have been made believers. We now return to Bill Moyers and Jane Goodall in the studio. I took my grandson up to the American Museum of Natural History two or three weeks ago, and they have this marvelous hall of bow diversity. And you read there that 98% of all the mammal and plant species that have existed since time immemorial have disappeared. Extinction is a part of life. It's a part of the history of the world. So why, what's special now? Because of us, because there have been extinctions, because there has been fluctuations in climate that changes ecosystems and habitats. Since the industrial revolution are human impact on the planet,

our greenhouse gas emissions are reckless damage to the natural world, our continual growth of our populations. They have had a tremendously damaging effect which has led to the sixth great extinction, which is happening. At the American Museum of Natural History, they do say that five times, reportedly five times, and since time immemorial, we've had a speeding up of the extinction of species. And that now, this is happening again, and that's why they refer to it as the sixth great extinction. And it's happening faster than the others. And you only have to look around. About two months ago, I was in Greenland, and I was standing at the foot of a great cliff of ice, which went right up to the ice cap that covers the top of the world, and standing with Inuit elders, and hearing, and seeing, huge slabs of ice come crashing off and thundering down,

looking at this water that emerged from the ice cliff, which before, even in summer, it never melted. Inuits had tears. Some of them hadn't been there since they were children. The Inuit are the... Yeah. And they said this is our country crying out for help. You know, so it's... I think, should, anyway, give us a sense of responsibility. We're the ones who have set ourselves up as masters over the natural world. We can change any environment to suit ourselves. So we'd better start thinking about the long-term consequences of those changes. Well, what I found so enchanting about your book is that it's full of people like you. You call them keepers of the planet. For example, Don Merton. I love him. Tell me about Don Merton. Well, Don Merton was studying, among other things, a little bird called the Black Robin. And he realized that the numbers were decreasing rather rapidly.

And he felt quite sure it was because they were being attacked by introduced rats and cats in New Zealand. And he wanted to catch the last few and put them on an offshore island, where there were no rats and cats, because, you know, they haven't evolved flight response. They don't have natural mammal predators in New Zealand. So by the time he finally convinced the bureaucracy to let him do this, there were only 27 left. When they went back to that little island in the spring, there were only seven. Of those seven, only two were female. Of those two females, only one was fertile. And that one had an infertile mate. Right, give up, wouldn't you? But Don didn't. And he tried something which nobody had done in those days. It's common now, taking away the eggs, putting them with another bird to raise, hoping she'd make another nest and lay more eggs. Because she swapped her mate. She took a young guy, which had never seen before.

Old story. And so anyway, so these eggs had, she made a second nest, more eggs. He dared to take those two, gave them to another kind of bird. Now she laid her third lot. Then these ones didn't realize, obviously, that they were black robins if they were raised by another species. So he took the babies back to her and her nest and her new mate. And then this lot hatched, so he took them. And he said, she looked up at me as if to say, what next? And he said, it's all right, my love. We're going to help you. We love the sort of these three biologists running around collecting worms or bugs or whatever they eat. And what do we learn from that? Well, what we learn is never give up. There's now more than 300. So this amazing and unique little species that Don Merton loves is now being given a second chance. So we must never give up. And you say, I have fallen in love with black-footed ferret. Oh, yes.

How so? I've seen them one, I think, once. I've done a documentary on the plains. But why in love with the ferret? Because it's the most I'd never seen one. But I went out with the ferret people. And we went out all night and you saw some of these little ferrets. And in the spotlight, their eyes emerald. So they're only about this long. They're very athletic. And they're just charming. And you know how somehow it was a beautiful, beautifully made. A tiny inside, as you say, might encourage an utterly enchanting. They are utterly enchanting. But their life is absolutely entwined with the prairie dogs. And farmers don't like prairie dogs. So prairie dogs are being poisoned and sucked out with vacuum cleaners. And the great prairies are almost reduced because of agriculture, farming, development, and the relentless training of the aquifers. So if you save the ferret, that means you've saved the prairie dog. That means you've saved a piece of the great prairies. It's a totally unique ecosystem.

It's part of America's heritage. We shouldn't deny our great-grandchildren who with any luck will be wiser than we. The opportunity of being in a place which nurtured their ancestors. You exult in here that the California cunder is flying again. Why does that make you happy? Because what a master of the air. Have you ever watched one in flight? Only in the documentary. Yeah, but they're fantastic. And they've got this huge wingspan. And they were down to 12 living birds. And they were not breeding properly in the wild. It was one in captivity. Same old fight, the biologists wanted to catch the last 12. And we're told, OK, if you catch them, you're bound to kill some. Even if you catch them, they weren't breeding captivity. Even if they do breed in captivity, you won't be able to reintroduce them to the wild. And even if you do reintroduce them, they won't be able to breed successfully. So, you know, no, no, no, no. However, they caught all 12 and nobody died and they bred very nicely.

Well, there's over 300 of them now, more than half a free flying. And because I like my symbols of hope, I brought to share with you this amazing. Now, you look at this feather and tell me if it wasn't worthwhile, bringing back this majestic bird. That is magnificent. Isn't this amazing and feel it, this power of it? Oh, yes. And you have a right to carry this around. I have a permit signed by, you know, that it's for educational use. That's marvelous, isn't it? So, what do you think when you see one story? I just think, but for this little band of people, they wouldn't be there. There's some good news about wolves in your book, right? And I know you love red wolves. Yes, red wolves. They were reduced to about 17, I think, individuals. Just 17? Yeah, 17.

17. Wow. I didn't realize that. Or even 11. It's a very small number. I can't quite remember. Because they've, for years, been trapped and poisoned and none. And all out genocide, actually. Let's get rid of these ghastly creatures that are endangering our cattle and so forth, which they basically don't. And so, again, this little group of dedicated wolf people, and they're amazing. I mean, they're all about them in the book, and I've met some of them. And they bred them and released them. And they're doing pretty well in North Carolina. Yeah, I read that in your book, I read that 65 to 70% of them now wear these GPS collars so that the wolf pack, as you call it, the preservationist down there, can actually plop them several times a day as they move. Yes. And that's important to know, because it shows us where civilization encroaches and crowds upon them, right? That's right. And there's also one collar anyway, that if necessary, the biologists can tranquilize them from a distance.

There's a little mechanism in the collar. I wish they didn't have to wear collars, I actually hate it. I actually hate it. Why? Because it doesn't look dignified to see an animal with a collar. And the condors have these marks on them too. But, you know, hopefully, if it all works, their descendants wouldn't have these nasty man-made. But only there, because people love them. Have you ever heard wolves howling in a pack? I have. And it's magical, and they do do howling safaris now. People can go out and listen to them at night. You say in here that tourism may be a force in saving these species. How is that? Well, first of all, because when people see with their own eyes, it changes them. They tell me. But in some cases, like Africa, where there's poverty and so forth, tourism can offer a way of bringing in foreign exchange, which can be very, very significant for a government. Like in Rwanda, the guerrilla tourism is the second largest

foreign exchange journal in the country. And that helped to save the guerrillas during the ethnic violence. Because both sides wanting to win, wanted to make money from the guerrillas. But, you know, you can destroy nature. If you have too many people who love it all trampling around at the same time, I've seen it happen. So it's a very fine balance. But when people see with their eyes, it's something happens, you know? Yeah, how is it that human beings can attach emotionally to animals? I just don't understand that. Well, I suppose from the time we domesticated wolves and got ourselves dogs. And, you know, it's amazing. Like the scientific proof now that if you're sick, a dog can actually help you to heal and so can a cat. So there is something in this bond. And it's, again, another window into the fact that we are part of the animal kingdom. Is there any evidence that the animals, the chimps in particular,

have this, quote, spiritual awareness, the sense of other beyond themselves? They understand the difference between me and you. That we're pretty sure. They're certainly aware of things going on around them. Over and above that, I don't know. I mean, we with our, you know, words and we want to question, why am I here? What's the purpose of it all? We call it a soul. So if I have a soul, and you have a soul, then I think a chimps has a soul. And my dog has a soul too. Well, you even find mysticism in the hooping crane, right? Well, I did. Yes. When I have the opportunity going to visit those amazing young birds, they're so ancient. In Wisconsin. With Joe Duff, the Operation Migration. You know, and just being there with them, and then flying up in the ultra light, because they're being trained on a new migration route. They normally learn from their parents,

and they want to create a second migration route in case the existing group gets hit by bird flu or something. So they're training them to fly from Wisconsin to Florida. I think it's the 12th migration that's happening right now. And so I went up in the ultra light for the training, one of the training flights. And, you know, being up there, it was almost like being a bird, up in the sky, open all around, and looking down at the wetlands below. It was just so beautiful. And, you know, there again, the human imagination, training them this way, and the spirit of, you know, I won't give up. We will not let these amazing beautiful birds disappear. So this is just a new report out saying that somewhere around 17,000, 17,300 species are actually in danger right now. I mean, that's what you're up against, right? That's what we're up against, absolutely. And it wouldn't be easy just to say,

well, it's a trend, and it's just happening. The pendulum is swinging. We just better sit back and let it swing, and maybe one day it'll swing back. And if everybody stopped, if everybody gave up, then I wouldn't like to think of the world that my great-great-grandchildren would be born into. You know, the forests would go. They've been going so fast, the tropical rainforest, and the woodlands as well. So there'd be huge areas of desert, the droughts which are already happening in Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa, would be worse. There'd be very few wild animals. People would probably be living in some kind of bubble, a very artificial life, because there wouldn't be much. The water would all be polluted. The groundwater would be almost gone. I suppose we'd be decalinating the sea for our water. But I didn't want to live in that sort of world. You remind me that about the time you started at the Gombrin National Forests in 1960,

I was joining the Kennedy administration. We were organizing the Peace Corps. And I made many trips to Africa, then, for the government, for the Peace Corps. When I've gone back over the years, most recently, you know, as a journalist, it's astonishing to me that what I used to see is green, verdant, rich countryside is now a desert. It's the burden of people. It's this explosive overpopulation. You know, there are sort of two main causes of intense environmental destruction. And one is absolute poverty, because you know, what can you do? Except cut down some more trees and try and grow food in the tropics, cut the tree cover down, and you soon get a desert. And that's happening all over the developing world. It's happened in the US, the Great Dust Bowl, over agricultural use. So poverty is one, and unsustainable lifestyles is another. And that's you and me, and all the others like us. So why don't we not have the imagination to see what is happening, but isn't yet arrived?

Well, I tell you, first of all, I've spent years watching chimpanzees. They are more like us than any other living creature. The brain is almost the same. The intellectual abilities are extraordinary. But even the brightest chimp, doesn't make sense to compare intellectually with the average human, let alone a nine-stein. It doesn't make sense. I mean, think what we've done. Think of our technology. We've gone to the moon. We've got little robots running around Mars. I mean, it's extraordinary what we've done. So how come this most intellectual being, as far as we know, to ever have walked on this planet, is destroying its only home? You know, I'm sure you've read these calculations. I think E.O. Wilson was the first to say. You've been at this table before. I bet he has. But if everybody on the planet had the same standard of living as us, then we would need three new planets. We'll say four or five to supply sufficient non-renewable natural resources. But we don't even have one new one.

We've got this one. So do you think we've lost something called wisdom, the indigenous people making a decision based on how does the decision we make today affect our people generations ahead? So how do we make decisions today? How will it affect me, me and my family now? How will it affect the next shareholders meeting? Three months ahead. How will it affect my next political campaign? Or, you know, something like that? So is there a disconnect between this incredibly clever brain and the human heart, love and compassion? I remember reading a book that I believe you read, Richard Dawkins, The Self Is Gene, 20, 25 years ago, in which he makes the claim that everything we do is selfish. That is, it's in our own self-interest. And that we exist in this planet, that is ruthless and cold and indifferent to us. Is that different from the life of the chimps? You started out a moment ago by talking about the chimps. What is it that we can take from them, that you learned from them that might help us cope with this world?

Well, there's one way that says to help us be less arrogant and realize that we're part of it all, and that we'd better, you know, destroy the environment. Some people say, well, you know, a few animals, what does it matter if they go extinct? But I've been to places, as you have, where absolute crippling poverty, as a result of environmental degradation, is meaning that people are suffering horribly too, and it's getting worse and worse. People are moving because their islands are going underwater. I mean, we should be able to understand the consequences of our selfish behaviour by now. So we can learn from the chimps that we're different in these ways, and we should be able to do more to make change than they possibly could. Do they seem concerned about our wear of their environment, the disappearing forest around them, the difficulty to get the food that they used to get rather easy? Is that a difference between them and us? Well, I mean, they obviously know it's tough times, but I'm absolutely sure they don't know why.

Yeah, the forest was there yesterday, and now it's not. I could wander there last year, and I may get shot. I mean, they know those things, but they can't work out wide. But they are in danger of them, and you said a moment ago, there were about a million of them when you went to Africa in 1960, and they're about four to five hundred thousand. Less than three hundred thousand now. Less than three hundred? That was back in 1986. That's almost two-thirds of them have disappeared in your lifetime. Yes, and what's more, many of those remain, and they're stretched over 21 nations in Africa. Many are in tiny, isolated fragments of forest, which, you know, separated from others, they have no hope of surviving in the future, because the gene pool's too small. So what do we lose if the last chimp goes? Well, we lose one window into learning about our long course of evolution, but we lose, you know, I've spent so long and looked into these minds that are fascinating,

because they're so like us, and yet they're in another world, and I think the magic is, I will never know what they're thinking. I can guess. And so it's like elephants and gorillas and, you know, all the different animals that we are pushing towards extinction. What are our great grandchildren going to say if they look back? And I felt sad that the dodo had gone, but those people didn't understand. They look back, the children in the future, at our generation and say, how could they have done that? They did understand. There were lots of people out there telling them, how wide did they go on not trying to do anything about it? And when I told someone yesterday that you were coming, he said, well, you know, I just read that there are 30, 200 tigers left in the world, and that their Asian habitat is disappearing very quickly. And he said, but, you know, when the tigers are gone, will they be missed anymore than the dodo? Is missed?

What difference does it make, he said? It's just that, you know, if you have this huge respect for the natural world that I have and the wonder of all these different forms of evolution and these fantastic ecosystems where everything depends on everything else, we don't know what difference it might make if some of these creatures that we're pushing to the edge disappear. You can take out a tiny insect from an ecosystem of who cares? Well, it may turn out that some other creature depended on that tiny insect. So that will disappear. And goodness knows what effect that one had on something over there. So that will change. And so in the end, you get what's being called, you know, ecological collapse. So is there good news? There's lots of good news. And can I start with Gombi? You mean that's where you started? Yes, that's where I started. So when I got there, there were 150 chimps and three different communities living on the lake shore, which is about 300 miles altogether.

And from where I was near Kigoma, you could go for miles along the lake, chimp habitat. You could climb up from the lake, look out, chimp habitat, few villagers. Then in the early 90s, I flew over in a plane and I knew there was deforestation. I had no idea it was virtually total. Just gone. So this tiny little island of forest, 30 square miles surrounded by cultivated fields, eroded soil, landslides, horrible poverty. Too many people there for the land to support. How could we even think of saving the chimps with so much suffering? So that led to our take care program, the Jane Goodall Institute's take care. And that program, over the years, has worked to improve the lives very holistically of the people in the villages, 24 villages around Gombe. Everything from different farming methods and helping them with water projects and such.

Especially important has been microcredit programs for women. The women take in groups, as a group of five women, they take out a tiny loan, each one for a different project, or sometimes altogether. And they pay back, and it's got to be environmentally sustainable. So maybe buying a few chickens, selling the eggs, raising the eggs, selling some more, pay back, then you can take out a slightly bigger loan. So all these women have been empowered because they now have some things there. They haven't had a handout. The real encouragement is that, as soon as their lives began to improve, they began to allow trees to come back. As a result, they have set aside the land, the government requires them to put into conservation in such a way as to make a buffer between the Gombe chimps and the villages and so that other small remnant groups and Gombe chimps will be able to interact again. So as income increases,

the quality of life increases, and they're more interested in preserving what is around. And they understand, well, clearly, what's at stake with the environmental, which that local economy depends? Exactly. They understand saving the watershed. They understand that you can't destroy the trees along the edge of a stream, or the water level will, the amount of water will decrease. They've seen it happen. And they completely understand it, that the trees and the water and the environment and their future wealth and happiness are all mixed together. And you must have had the same experience as me, traveling around the world, and realizing, you know, Africa's problems are just generated within Africa. They generated outside. They've been generated through hundreds of years of colonial exploitation. And there's something else. It always irritates me. There's a saying, we haven't inherited this planet from our parents. We've borrowed it from our children. When you borrow, you plan to pay back. We've been stealing and stealing and stealing. And it's about time we got together

and started paying back. Hope for animals in their world. How endangered species are being rescued from the brain. Jane Goodall, thank you for the book, the conversation, and for the life. Thank you. That's it for this edition of The Journal. Remember to go to our website at pbs.org and click on Bill Moria's journal. You can explore further the life and work of Jane Goodall and find out more about the Jane Goodall Institute and its global environmental youth program, Roots and Shoes. There's also information on biodiversity and threatened species around the world. That's all at pbs.org. I'm Bill Moria's, and I'll see you next time. Music Get tips on what you can do as an individual

to help safeguard the environment. Log on at pbs.org. Music Major funding is provided by the Partridge Foundation, a John and Pollock Guth Charitable Fund. Park Foundation dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues, the Colberg Foundation, the Herb Albert Foundation, Maryland and Bob Climates, and the Clements Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, and by our sole corporate sponsor, Mutual of America, providing retirement products and services to employers and individuals since 1945, Mutual of America, your retirement company.

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