HOW EVERY ONE OF US CAN DO OUR BIT TO SAVE THE PLANET
Primatologist Jane Goodall explains why she remains hopeful that climate change can be slowed
World-leading primatologist Jane Goodall has spent decades at the forefront of conservation. Now aged 88, she shows no signs of slowing down.
“My energy and motivation come from the fact that our world is in a mess right now,” Goodall says in an episode of Talking Post with Post chief news editor Yonden Lhatoo.
But for all the damage humans have inflicted on the planet, and with climate change and the pandemic dominating headlines, Goodall remains hopeful.
She recently co-authored The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. Released last year, it was an instant bestseller.
Countries that embrace positive environmental policies fuel her optimism. China, Goodall says, is a prime example.
She first visited the country in 1994 when it was opening up to the idea of environmental protection, and says that it is “playing an important role in conservation”, and has “a super reputation for protecting wildlife and protecting the environment”.
Goodall cites China’s ambitious tree-planting initiative – it aims to plant and conserve 70 billion trees by 2030 to fight climate change – and its long effort to pull the giant panda back from the brink of extinction.
Last year, the giant panda – considered a national treasure – was taken off the endangered species list.
One of China’s biggest victories, Goodall says, is in poverty alleviation. In 2020, President Xi Jinping declared victory in the country’s fight against poverty, saying almost 100 million people had been lifted out of extreme material deprivation after eight years of struggle.
As well as unsustainable lifestyles, poverty is a main driver of environmental destruction.
“When you’re really poor, you’re going to destroy the environment,” she says. “That’s because to survive, people cut down trees to make more land to grow more food, or to make money from timber.”
Goodall says it is vital to bring people out of poverty, and “help them understand that protecting the environment isn’t just for the wildlife but for their own – our own – future”.
The future is in the hands of today’s young people, she says, which is the reason she devotes so much time to Roots & Shoots, a youth-led initiative run by the Jane Goodall Institute.
Established in 1991, the initiative, focused on environmental, conservation and humanitarian issues, hosts programmes in more than 60 countries, among them China (including Hong Kong).
“One of the main messages of the programme is that every single one of us can make some kind of impact on the planet every day, and we can choose what sort of impact we make,” she says.
“I had a wonderful letter from a mother in China and she said, ‘Until my daughter started Roots & Shoots in her school and persuaded me to help, I was just a woman who went shopping – I didn’t think about what I bought’.
“But now, she says, ‘I think about it, I ask myself, am I making an ethical choice?’”
It’s this sort of feedback that drives the British conservationist, who started her research in 1960 at age 26, and is best known for her detailed observations of Tanzanian chimpanzee behaviour, which redefined how we view the animal.
Her research in the jungle found that chimpanzees were capable of rational thought and experienced emotions such as joy and sorrow – traits once considered unique to humans.
But human behaviour continues to blight the animal world, she says, and the pandemic showed why we need to respect animals.
Habitat destruction and the illegal wildlife trade pushes animals closer to people, and places like unhygienic live-wildlife markets create the conditions for zoonotic diseases – infections that spread from animals to people.
And it’s not just wildlife markets. Factory farms “where we keep billions of animals around the world in terrible conditions” are also fertile grounds for the spread of disease, she says.
While Hong Kong has made progress in clamping down on the ivory trade – on December 31, 2021, it officially banned the sale of elephant ivory – more work is needed to educate people in the countries where ivory dealers operate, Goodall says.
Further efforts to tackle the huge and corrupt illegal trade in wildlife is also needed, she says.
“The illegal animal wildlife trade is very corrupt and huge amounts of money are being made,” she says of a trade that’s estimated to be worth more than US$20 billion a year. “Many people are tackling this in Africa … they’re actually risking their lives.”
Corruption, she says, is also a stumbling block to tackling climate change.
“When a big company doesn’t want to change the way it operates – because of the production of emissions leading to these greenhouse gases – they’re very powerful. They’re a very powerful lobby. And this really is the problem.”
Again, it’s hope, education and awareness that motivate Goodall. But the clock is ticking.
“I care about the environment. I care about animals and forests, and I care about our children and the future,” she says. “But I’ve reached the great age of 88 and I don’t know how many active years I have left.
“I mean, we’ve still got a window of time to slow down climate change and biodiversity loss, but I just don’t know how big that window is … and it’s closing.”