Dr. Jane Goodall - On the occasion of International Women's Day, we present a portrait of a fearless woman who has dedicated herself to research as well as environmental activism. For decades, the British woman researched the behavior of chimpanzees in Tanzania. Today, Jane Goodall is almost 87 years old - and still hoping for a turning point in saving our planet.
Most recently, Jane Goodall, in an open letter to the EU Commission, joined the initiative "End The Cage Age". The European Citizens' Initiative has been signed by more than 1.4 million individuals and organizations and calls for an end to caging of farm animals in the EU. Previously, EU law already recognized animals as "sentient beings," yet more than 300 million animals spend their lives in cages in Europe.
Jane Gooall - The first female behaviorist
Born in 1934, the Briton was fascinated by the stories of Tarzan. In 1957, the trained secretary traveled to Kenya for the first time at the invitation of a school friend. There she joined anthropologist Louis Leakey, director of the Kenya National Museum, and had him mentor her.
Just three years later, she was commissioned by Leakey to observe chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in western Tanzania. Jane Goodall is thereby supposed to be the first woman to research the behavior of animals in the wild and draw conclusions about the behavior of prehistoric humans. For the first time, she gave names instead of numbers to the animals she observed and thus became a chimpanzee mother.
Despite not having a university degree, the researcher earned her doctorate at Cambridge University in 1962, because she was granted an exemption on the basis of her work. After three years, she was then awarded the doctorate there.
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A researcher became an activist overnight
Jane Goodall was busy with chimpanzee research for almost three decades, when she became an activist over night. Because when she learned about the destruction of the chimpanzees' habitat at a conference in Chicago, she abandoned her research and focused on protecting the animals as well as their habitat.
To this day, she travels the world giving lectures, presenting studies and trying to raise people's awareness of environmental and species conservation. For this purpose, she founded the "Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation" in 1977.
Jane Goodall Awards - What she has already achieved
- Almost everything we know about chimpanzees today has been observed and written into research reports
- More than 30 years ago, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation (JGI), which today works in over 20 countries to promote respect for people, animals and nature.
- The Roots & Shoots campaign, founded by Goodall and students, aims to bring children and young people from all over the world closer to working for the protection of animals, the environment and people. This year the campaign will be 30 years old
- In 2002 Jane became a UN ambassador for peace
- The Queen ennobled Goodall with the title "Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire" (DBE)
