Jane Goodall: Chimps Need Our Help 'Desperately'

Dr. Jane Goodall hates apathy.

The world-renowned chimp expert is the first to acknowledge that saving threatened species is an uphill battle, but believes that's no reason to throw up one's hands in frustration.

"Sometimes people feel helpless, because if you care about the environment and the future, there are so many problems, and they just do seem overwhelming. Therefore, people sometimes think, 'Well, there's no point in doing anything,' and that’s the very worst, this apathy," she told The Huffington Post.

A quick glance at the record of Goodall's extensive work proves that lack of passion is not among her character traits. In 1960, despite the odds, the 26-year-old Goodall ventured to Tanzania to study chimpanzees in the wild. Her research challenged conventional beliefs, revealing the complex nature and human-like characteristics of chimps.

Fifty-two years later, she still sees a long road ahead. Chimps need our help "desperately," Goodall said. The animal is endangered, its population on the decline, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List. Rough estimates suggest the total population is less than 300,000 left in the wild.

"Numbers have plummeted over the past hundred years. ... They are in 21 countries but spread thin," Goodall said, citing the trade in bushmeat (the meat of wild animals) and dwindling forests as two major threats to the animal.

Rachel Nuwer reported last year for The New York Times that bushmeat markets are common in many regions of Africa. Researchers found that chimpanzee meat was occasionally sold at these markets and that legislation -- establishing fines for possession, for example -- could prove beneficial in slowing the hunting of threatened species.

According to Goodall, the bushmeat trade in Africa is being "made possible in areas that previously were inaccessible because logging companies have moved in ... and the hunters can go along the [newly made] roads. So everything is shot now."

Although political action could help protect chimps, it's not an easy solution. "We're talking about 21 sovereign nations," Goodall noted. "Some of the countries in Africa are pretty volatile politically, and they have other matters that to them seem more important."

Meanwhile, Goodall said, the forests where the chimps live are disappearing as human populations grow and people clear land for cattle and crops.

A U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization survey, released in November 2011, found that between 1990 and 2005, the planet saw a net loss of 4.9 million hectares of forest a year. That's nearly 10 hectares of forest per minute​. The loss is largely attributed to the transformation of tropical forests into agricultural land.

Goodall cited British climate economist Sir Nicholas Stern, who in a 2006 report suggested deforestation prevention as a cost-effective way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Goodall drew the links: "Saving our forests is the cheapest and most efficient way of slowing down global warming. ... If you're going to save chimps, you must save forests."

How can individuals help the chimpanzees?

Goodall voiced support for "Chimpanzee," an upcoming Disney film that she hopes will "help raise awareness about how amazing chimpanzees are." A portion of the first week's ticket sales will benefit the Jane Goodall Institute, a chimp conservation nonprofit focused on research, education and sustainable community outreach.

People can also donate directly to the Jane Goodall Institute.

Goodall pointed to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, where the institute works with local communities, "helping them to improve their lives in environmentally sustainable ways. Instead of having people competing for the surviving forest because they need it to feed themselves, they've now become our partners."

Goodall concluded, "I hope that people will understand that they matter as an individual. Every single day the choices they make will have either negative or positive impacts on the environment, on animals and on human health. So it's really, really important to live each day knowing you make a difference."

From our partners

• Widespread Greenland Melting A Sign Of Things To Come - Climate Central
• Limiting Methane Leaks Critical To Gas, Climate Benefits - Climate Central
• 11 Images And Facts About A Misunderstood Creature - Mother Nature Network

Comments

[olitenup]

11:17 PM on 03/22/2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118376/Filmmakers-heart-wrenching-documentary-shows-tragic-final-hours-orangutans-life.html

This is also very, very tragic. The orangs desperately need our help. Indonesia plantation and timber companies have a campaign on to get rid of them. They offer money for dead adults and are selling the babies to traffickers.

[trweste144]

07:44 AM on 03/22/2012

I'm not a religious man, but Dr. Goodall is some kind of saint. I wish we heard from her more.

[iLdoRight]

02:28 AM on 03/22/2012

Caption suggestion; " Leave My Little Girl Alone You Bullies ! "

[rlmyrtlb]

01:36 PM on 03/21/2012

Sorry, that's the Great Ape Act

[rlmyrtlb]

01:28 PM on 03/21/2012

We, all three of us, will see the CHIMPANZEE the first week it's out!.

I have viewed Karl Ammann's tragic photos of killed and butchered gorillas, and chimpanzees, and this is a serious crime against our closest biological relatives. Please read Dale Peterson's EATING APES and join the GREAT APE PROJECT

[Vmathew]

10:06 AM on 03/21/2012

You really do feel like giving up hope. Each day I read something horrible being done to our planet. The most I can do from home is sign petitions, or donate money through Defenders of wildlife or other organizations that are trying to make a difference out there. I hope everyone does the same!!

[rlmyrtlb]

01:35 PM on 03/21/2012

Dale Peterson's ... What You Can Do
Inform yourself
Inform others
Debate
Act Politically....support the Great Ape Act....write to the president of the World Bank urging taxes on loggers, timber dealers, and transporters.
Write to Congo Basin national embassies

[karen lyons kalmenson]

09:54 AM on 03/21/2012

i hope that the movie "chimpanzee" awakens the sleeping giant of action that people can be,when finally motivated

[vtracy95]

09:51 AM on 03/21/2012

her whole life dedicated to chimps and she's right back where she started...we live in a cruel world ...teaching the younger generation is our only hope....

[doodlebug2]

12:18 PM on 03/21/2012

I wish I could say "that will help"
but I remember her shows in the 70's and 80's and it got worse. Did we (the younger generation then) do anything to help. NO. maybe this gen is smarter

[Citizen13]

09:20 AM on 03/21/2012

If we could just bottle a small portion of her compassion and spread it around it would serve the world well.

[Darlene Callahan]

08:26 AM on 03/21/2012

Humans are ignorant parasites to this planet.

[Carol Smaldino]

08:18 AM on 03/21/2012

Also if you see the documentary on Jane Goodall's journeys, along with her help to human beings--especially children through her Roots and Shoots programs, you will be amazed and I think moved to help. "Jane's Journey" makes the viewer feel that sense that Ms Goodall has, that lack of hope is not acceptable. The lives she has touched, of course those of chimpanzees who have touched her as well, cannot be minimized and she is a beacon--not only of hope--but of an insistance on hope.

[rlmyrtlb]

01:39 PM on 03/21/2012

And Jane Goodall is one super lecturer. We saw her at the Northrup Auditorium, and it was

a HOOT!

[osofar]

08:16 AM on 03/21/2012

Jane Goodall has always been an inspiration to me, and is an example to our future as a species that there are a few visionaries amongst us.

[thesciguy]

08:11 AM on 03/21/2012

Dr. Goodall, The Journey is the Destination. We may not be able to save chimpanzees, but the attempt is all that matters. We fool ourselves into believing we are the stewards of this planet, when in reality this planet could care less and has already survived much much worse. We will surely destroy ourselves (and take many other species with us), and this planet will not remember. But every second of the struggle is worth it. Good luck.

[LeftNutt]

10:01 AM on 03/21/2012

Well said

[Ailidh]

08:06 AM on 03/21/2012

The problem is over population of the planet. Maybe the whole world needs a Chinese-type regimen to reinforce the idea that humans need to reproduce like pandas, not rabbits.

[C Karen Stopford]

07:59 AM on 03/21/2012

We are never told this stuff in the media, we are never shown photos that show the widespread destruction of habitat which forms a basis, largely, for our ability to live the comfy lives we have today. These things are excluded from our view so that we can be taught not to care, not to leave our comfort zones where we are all prozac-happy consumers. It is time to sit up and take notice of the true cost of our comfort, and make some changes - because some prices are just too dear to be worth it! And yes, I'm talking to myself as much as anyone else - as a "comfy" American, I also stand accused as being willfully ignorant of who and what is paying for my ability to be comfortable.

[jmbsjy]

08:10 AM on 03/21/2012

I am now your fan. Well said.

[rlmyrtlb]

04:24 PM on 03/21/2012

Have been aware of the bushmeat problem for some time. We read that International Wildlife, and National Geo. found the slaughter of apes to be too disturbing for an Amer. audience, had no wish to violate the sensibilities of their readers.

An inner clock usually wakes me up at 5 a.m. so I can learn something anent the chimpanzee with a young man working for Jane Goodall's Institute's Chimp Eden. He, Eugene Cussons, rescues and rehabilitates chimpanzees that have been living in horrific captivity. We have viewed him interacting with grown male chimps, tickling them, etc. and where in the blazes does he get the nerve?