Conservationist Goodall says Dubai centre can empower young people to help planet
▶ Outreach project by renowned ape expert aims to give hope to next generation, reports Ramola Talwar Badam
Acclaimed conservationist Jane Goodall has said her planned office in Dubai would empower young people to “actually make a difference to the planet”. She announced plans yesterday to open the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots programme at the Sustainability Pavilion, otherwise known as Terra, at Expo City Dubai.
Speaking to The National, Dr Goodall, 89, said it would help young people to better understand and address environmental challenges.
The centre will be the latest addition to string of environmental, animal welfare and youth outreach initiatives she has launched in 70 countries.
“It’s about hope. Every individual makes an impact on the planet every single day and can choose what sort of impact they make,” she said.
“It will give them values that they take with them when they move out and beyond from Roots & Shoots.”
The programme began in Tanzania, where it grew from just 12 high-school students and now has community engagement from across the world, welcoming people of all ages to address environmental and humanitarian challenges.
Members range from kindergarten pupils to university students and staff in multinational corporations.
Fragile desert
The primatologist said it was critical for people to safeguard the desert’s fragile ecosystem.
“I know that it looks like miles and miles of sand dune, but there is actually vibrant animal life, little creatures that live under the ground in the daytime and come out at night,” she said.
“Sometimes people destroy that fragile ecosystem. So, if something is beautiful and not very well known then it’s very important to preserve it.”
She said it was important for young people to follow what they are passionate about. “The message I would like to give all the children is: follow your dreams and even if people laugh at you, just hang in there,” she said.
“But on the other hand, if it goes wrong and you find that maybe this wasn’t quite what you wanted to do – don’t feel that it’s bad to change direction.”
She said her mother supported her childhood dream of travelling to Africa and living with wild animals – her imagination fired by reading the Tarzan novels.
Dr Goodall’s mother then told her she could achieve her ambitions through hard work and seizing every opportunity.
“When I was 10, I fell in love with Tarzan,” she said earlier in a press conference at Expo City Dubai. “That was my dream, to grow up, go to Africa and live with wild animals and write books about them.”
She spoke of how she saved money and, at the age of 26, reached Gombe Chimpanzee Reserve.
Dr Goodall’s work in Gombe National Park in Tanzania is widely regarded as having shaped understanding of apes.
Proved professors wrong
Her landmark research on wild chimpanzees making and using tools challenged the conventional thinking of the time. Dr Goodall’s study broke down an imagined line that science had once maintained separating humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.
When defending her findings at the University of Cambridge in 1961, she proved wrong academics who questioned her logic in naming chimpanzees and attributing emotions and intellect to them.
“The very first thing I realised is how like us they are in so many ways with kissing, embracing, holding hands, the males competing for dominance and swaggering, the long-term bonds between family members,” she said.
“I was told I had done everything wrong – that chimpanzees shouldn’t have names and I couldn’t talk about them having personalities, minds, emotions, because those are unique to humans. So, I got my PhD in spite of the professors.”
Her work involved not only protecting the chimpanzees but also the poor forest communities who cut trees.
“That’s when it hit me that if we don’t find a way to help these people to find a way to make a living without destroying the environment, we can’t save the planet,” she said.
Not too late to act
Dr Goodall said she often tells young people that it is not too late to act to protect nature.
“The most urgent thing I have to do with the last years of my life is to grow this programme,” she said.“If we don’t have hope we are doomed.”
Roots & Shoots UAE will offer workshops on tree-planting, beekeeping and conservation on the site and in schools, and provide resources for teachers and the community.
“It will empower youth in the UAE to become environmental stewards,” said Marjan Faraidooni, chief of education and culture at Expo City Dubai.
The most urgent thing to do with my last years is to grow this programme ... if we don’t have hope we are doomed
JANE GOODALL Primatologist and conservationist