Words of wisdom from an extraordinary dame
I heard a speaker last week who is everything we could want in a president. A woman from humble beginnings, she’s traveled widely, dealt with foreign governments, is a highly respected scientist with a serious interest in the environment-and she knows how to raise money.
She spoke in civil tones, maligning no one, to a crowd of 3,300 mostly young people who leapt to their feet cheering no less than a dozen times. She told stories that made them laugh and cry.
At 74, she’s got two years on the presumptive GOP candidate, but travels 300 days a year for her foundation; an indefatigable advocate for endangered animals, their habitat and for the planet. While she’s comfortable talking to the powerful, she connects equally with the poor and the disadvantaged. Talk about inspiration.
Well, you politicians can relax. She’s not running for office here, nor could she. She’s a British citizen. Among her long list of honors, Dr. Jane Goodall has received France’s Legion of Honor and England’s highest honor, Dame of the British Empire.
In her lecture at MSU, she made her case with tact, diplomacy and humor, but she didn’t mince words.
She said human beings are poisoning the planet and threatening animals with extinction. But there’s reason to hope we are smart enough and compassionate enough to turn things around. “We haven’t inherited this world from our parents -we’ve borrowed it from our children. We’ve been stealing, stealing, stealing.”
She finds real reason to hope, she says, because of the energy of young people, the power of the human brain, the resiliency of nature and the indomitable human spirit.
“You have only to read ‘Three Cups of Tea’ to understand Greg Mortenson’s spirit and his commitment to building schools in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Nelson Mandela, who emerged from prison in South Africa to lead and heal his country-how can we lose hope when we are surrounded by people like that?”
In his introduction, author David Quammen told of first meeting Goodall six years ago when they hiked into a pristine area of the Congo to find a small population of chimpanzees that had no experience or fear of humans. Though she was then 68, she hiked nine hours through jungle and swamp to get there, spent five days walking in the forest on blistered feet and then used her pull to preserve that area as part of a nearby national forest. “She is one extraordinary Dame.”
Growing up poor, without the resources to continue her schooling, she credits her mother with encouraging her to follow her dream of studying animals. Her first discovery at age 7, she said, came on a trip to a small farm where she was permitted to collect eggs. She asked, but no one would tell her, where on the hen the egg came out. So she hid out in an empty coop, camouflaged herself with straw and waited until a hen flew in to set. When the egg emerged, she was thrilled by her discovery.
She also was captivated by the story of Dr. Doolittle and wished she could talk to and understand all the animals. Little did she realize then that one day chimpanzees would accept her, and she would learn their language and talk to them.
She wrote to archeologist Louis Leakey, who gave her a job as his secretary and her first chance to study chimpanzees in the wild. Since young girls of the day were not permitted to travel alone, particularly not into the wilds of Africa, her mother offered to go with her to Gombe, Tanzania. While they were out there, she became frustrated because she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Her mother told her just to observe and write down everything she saw and heard. The results of those observations changed the way scientists thought about primate behavior. Until that time, it was believed that only humans were capable of making and using tools: that humans alone were capable of emotion and that was what set humans apart. Then young Goodall watched a chimp peel the leaves from a branch and poke it into a termite hill to extract the termites and eat them. That changed everything.
“There’s no sharp line dividing us human animals from the rest of the animal kingdom,” she said. “Once we admit we aren’t the only creatures to feel joy and other emotions, this leads us to a new responsibility.”
In the 1980s, she was appalled at the rapid disappearance of chimpanzee habitat and dwindling populations. Her efforts to save the chimps’ forest led her to develop programs to improve the lives of villagers. She got stoves for them to cook on so they wouldn’t cut down trees for firewood. And later she found a buyer for their coffee, and help with growing and harvesting the crop. Much of it is sold in this country now as organic, fair-trade coffee.
Oh, what a fine president she’d be, if only she were ours instead of Britain’s. How she would elevate the public debate. She’d help us make real change without making losers. We’d all be winners. She truly is one “extraordinary Dame.”