Today we celebrate the birthday of legendary Primatologist and Anthropologist Dr Jane Goodall. Through nearly 60 years of groundbreaking work, Dr. Jane Goodall has not only shown us the urgent need to protect species from extinction; she has also redefined conservation to include the needs of local people and the environment. Here we look back over some of the lessons about nature, climate change and wildlife conservation that Dr. Jane Goodall has taught us.
1. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”- Dr Jane Goodall
At the age of 26, Jane travelled from England to Tanzania where she would spend many years studying the social and familial interactions of wild chimpanzees. Her pioneering work showed the urgent need to protect chimpanzees from extinction and also redefined how we understand species conservation to take into account the needs of local people and the environment.
2. “Here we are, arguably the most intelligent being that has ever walked planet earth, with this extraordinary brain, yet we’re destroying the only home we have.”- Dr Jane Goodall
Jane has dedicated her life to conservation and animal welfare issues. As well as founding The Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots&Shoots programme, Dr Goodall is a UN Messenger of Peace and an honorary member of the World Future Council. Now she travels the world, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees and many other species in crisis, inspiring us to take care of all living things and planet we share.
3. “The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”- Dr Jane Goodall
Here at The Future Forest Company, we understand the urgency with which we must respond to the climate crisis and catastrophic nature losses we are facing. FFC Co-founder, Jim Mann, says ‘Our response to climate change is the defining moment for the planet with nothing less than our survival at stake. Only if we act boldly and quickly will we avert a disaster that is already unfolding.’
4. “My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature.”- Dr Jane Goodall
Protecting nature in all its forms is our mission at The Future Forest Company. The biodiversity on our sites encompass not just trees, but a whole host of plants, fungi, animals and microorganisms. As well as creating new forests, we protect many precious and rare habitats on our sites from ancient woodlands, where each individual veteran tree is an ecosystem in its own right supporting rich communities of flora, fauna, lichens and fungi, to wetlands which are not only amazing carbon stores but also a safe haven for wetland insects, birds and mammals, like dragonflies, snipe and otter, and wildflower meadows, an increasingly rare habitat which is essential for the recovery of our bee and other vital pollinator populations.
5. “Fortunately, nature is amazingly resilient: places we have destroyed, given time and help, can once again support life, and endangered species can be given a second chance. And there is a growing number of people who are aware of these problems and are fighting for the survival of our only home, planet earth. We must all join that fight before it is too late.”- Dr Jane Goodall
You can help us to conserve and restore nature today. With our range of subscription nature plans and one-off gifts, you can contribute towards conserving and restoring biodiversity on our UK sites, have a positive impact on carbon sequestration and help reverse the nature crisis.
