Three months before her death at 91, Jane Goodall was in Tanzania. Goodall famously kept up a relentless travel schedule into her 80s and 90s, giving lectures about the importance of protecting wildlife.
She was on a speaking tour in the United States when she died in October.
“She would do a lecture at the drop of a hat, spreading the message to people, which is why she didn’t stop,” said philanthropist and conservationist Dax Dasilva, who was with Goodall in Tanzania last year and interviewed her there. “She lectured multiple times a day to anybody who would hear it because it was so impactful to people.”
Dasilva, a Canadian tech entrepreneur who also traveled to the Brazilian Amazon with Goodall in 2023, said Goodall understood her power as an icon, not only as a scientist. Perhaps that is why she sat down with Dasilva to record a conversation during their final trip together.
In the previously unaired video posted on YouTube Monday, she shares her advice for staying hopeful and motivated in the face of so many intractable global problems.
“Just do something,” she said.
“People come to me and say: ‘Well, look at the world, look at the wars, look at the destruction of the environment, the poverty, the suffering, the destruction of the soil with industrial agriculture. … What can I do? I’m just one person,’” Goodall told Dasilva. “We have this stupid saying, ‘Think globally, act locally.’ But no, act locally first, and do something.”
She urged people to act on what matters to them, saying it can counter feelings of helplessness.
“What do you care about in your community?” she asked. “Maybe you don’t like the litter. … Organize beach cleanups. Get a group together to plant trees. … Just do something. That’ll make you feel better.”
Goodall was an unlikely primatologist and conservationist.
Her career began when she was in her 20s, a secretary and waitress in London with no scientific training who aspired to study animals in Africa. She saved up money to visit a friend in Kenya, where she met paleontologist Louis Leakey, who was studying human evolution in Africa.
Leakey gave Goodall her dream job, sending her to Tanzania in 1960 to observe chimpanzees in hopes of gaining insight into human behavior. She embedded herself in their world, learning through patient observation, ultimately reshaping our understanding of the species and ourselves.
Through years of field work in communities in Africa, she met many people and realized the importance of educating and uplifting communities as part of protecting the natural world.
“When I discovered in 1986 that chimp numbers were decreasing across Africa and forests were being destroyed, that’s when I left [protected primate habitat] Gombe permanently because I thought, ‘Well I’ve got to try and do something,’” Goodall said.
She traveled around Africa and learned about the habitat destruction and poaching that were harming chimpanzees, but she also began to understand the poverty and suffering that were leading people to these practices.
“I learned about the plight of so many people living in and around chimp habitats,” Goodall said.
She realized that helping chimpanzees and people was one mission.
Much of Goodall’s work in recent years focused on educating younger people; through her organization Roots & Shoots,she worked to empower the next generation of conservationists.
But she emphasized to Dasilva that older people are essential to the effort as well.
“It’s not true that older people can’t change,” Goodall said. “I’ve had many many people — older people — come up after a lecture and say, ‘Well Jane, I’d given up, but I promise you I’ll do my bit.’”
While Dasilva and Goodall were traveling together in Saadani National Park in Tanzania, they came across a herd of elephants that walked up to their car. Not long ago, the elephant population in the park had been almost depleted, and now there are hundreds because of concerted conservation efforts.
“Seeing elephants like that, with no fear, walking amongst us, it was magical,” Goodall said.
Dasilva said the elephants were just one example of the many success stories he saw traveling with Goodall.
“Impossibly bleak situations can get better,” Dasilva said.
Goodall agreed with the sentiment.
“The other thing I wrote about is animals basically going extinct in the wild … and just because somebody says, ‘No I won’t let this happen,’ and through captive breeding or protection in the wild, like the elephants in Saadani, they’re coming back into a proper big herd again,” she said.
Goodall emphasized that hope is generated by action. Take the first step, she said, to see that you can make a difference.
“Then you’ll want to do more. And then you’ll inspire others to join in,” Goodall said.
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