mardi 10 octobre 2017
Jane Goodall Has 5 Good Reasons We Should Stay Hopeful in a "Frightening World"
In 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall packed her bags for Tanzania. She had a deep, lifelong love of animals, but no formal scientific training. Despite it, she would go on to make history as the first person to live among chimpanzees and uncover an astonishing discovery when she witnessed a chimp she had named David Greybeard use a stick as a tool to unearth ants. (Until then, scientists believed only humans were capable of making and using tools.) Today, Goodall is one of the most iconic and beloved conservationists and scientists in modern history. She is also considered a historic trailblazer for women in a male-dominated field.
It's that latter aspect of Goodall's story that so captivated director Brett Morgen (pictured with Goodall above) when he set out to make his documentary Jane. "The narrative I was interested in first and foremost was this story of female empowerment, particularly in the era that Jane was working in," Morgen said. The stunning film follows Goodall on her first personally and professionally fateful trip to the Gombe rainforest. Morgen's documentary is based on hours upon hours of archival footage captured by Goodall's former husband, nature photographer Hugo van Lawick, whom she met and fell in love with during the expedition.
I joined a group of journalists in a conversation with Goodall, who is now 83, on the afternoon of the movie's Oct. 10 LA premiere. We talked about why she hasn't lost hope in humanity, the sexism she faced early in her career, and her memories of some of the truly remarkable chimps she met in Gombe.
On Whether She Recognized Female Empowerment as a Theme in Her Life Then
Absolutely not! There's a tribe somewhere in Latin America - they say "our tribe is like an eagle." And an eagle has two wings: one is male, one is female. Only when the two are equal can the tribe fly true. That's the way I think about this issue. And, certainly, I never thought at all about the fact that I was a woman until after I came back [from Gombe] with my results, and was branded as a geographic cover girl, and I only got anybody to listen to me because I had nice legs. It didn't actually bother me at the time, because I just wanted to learn about chimps. So to hell with them.
Jane with David Greybeard, one of the first chimps to allow Jane to touch and groom him.
On Her Memories of Flo, One of the Chimps She Met in Gombe
Well, Flo was one amazing lady. When I met her, she was over 14. Her teeth were worn to the gums, which proves how ancient she was, and she was so distinctive with this bulbous nose, and ragged ears, and thinning hair. And yet what an amazing mother she was. It's very clear in chimp society, there are good mothers and bad mothers, just as in human society. And there are mothers who are affectionate, protective, but not overprotective, and above all, supportive - like my mother . . . I mean, baboons have these great, long fierce teeth, but if one big male baboon was threatening a child of hers, she'd go charging in with her little bits of hair bristling, stamping and screaming, and that baboon would back off.
Flo was an amazing character. She was also unbelievably sexy. When she came into estrus, normally it's about five or six [times] of full estrus, for her it was [once]. And in that one day, she had 62 matings. In one day! She was exhausted. As soon as she got this pink swelling, she was followed by this long trail of all the males in the community. And the young ones [who] desperately wanted to get a go would shake a branch and try and lure her behind a bush. It was absolutely incredible.
And then poor Mr. McGregor, who got polio - that was just heartbreaking. And Flo's son, Flint, dying of grief. You know, those were amazing moments.
If we carry on with business as usual, then it's going to be too late. Some scientists say it's too late already. I believe we have a window of time.
On What Issues She Wants People to Be More Aware Of
I think right now the problems around the world are so huge, it's very hard to pull one thing out. It's all interrelated, and we're making a mess of things. There's no question about that. We're treating the finite resources of the planet as though they're infinite, and if we carry on with business as usual, then it's going to be too late. Some scientists say it's too late already. I believe we have a window of time. I keep meeting young people who've lost hope in the future. And if that happens, we may as well all give up. Our program Roots & Shoots is for people from preschool, university, everything in between, taking action on projects that they choose: one to help people, one to help animals, one to help the environment. They're rolling up their sleeves, getting out there - they're changing the world as we speak.
On What Keeps Her Hopeful in These Challenging Times
I've got five reasons. One is the young people that I've just mentioned. Two is this extraordinary intellect of ours, and when we use it in the right way, we're coming up with innovative technology - clean, green energy, solar, and wind - and we're beginning to think how we can actually take steps in our own individual lives to make less of a heavy, damaging footprint on our environment. The third reason to hope is the resilience of nature. We can utterly destroy a place - utterly destroy it - and given time and some help, it can once again support life. It may not be exactly as it was, but I've seen so many examples of it. And animals on the very brink of extinction are here because people said, 'No, we're not going to let them become extinct.' Fourthly, social media, used in the right way. We can, for the first time, bring together people from all over the globe who care passionately about, say, climate change. We can help them to hear each other's voices so they feel strengthened, they don't feel alone, and they therefore have more hope themselves and take more action.
And finally, the indomitable human spirit. People who tackle what seems impossible and won't give up. Icons like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King [Jr.]; I've met people with terrible disabilities who you think would just give up, but instead, they're out there inspiring everybody around them. Migrants who come into a country with nothing, they've lost everything, and yet they pull their lives together and make success.
Jane with the chimpanzee Flint, then an infant.
On How Urgent It Is That We Act Now to Save Chimpanzees
Well, the most important thing is to save the habitat. You've got to protect the forest. And that is not only protecting the chimpanzees, but all the other amazing creatures who live in the rainforest. And that, again, is affecting climate change.
The chimps have problems, but so, too, do so many of the people living in and around chimpanzee habitats. They're cripplingly poor. They don't have good health or education facilities. They're struggling to survive. I flew over Gombe, and what had been solid forest was the little oasis of Gombe surrounded by completely bare hills. And that's when it hit me: if we don't help the people improve their lives, then we can't even try to save the chimps. So chimpanzee numbers are still dropping, and it is very serious, but you know, it's the dysfunction of the rainforest - it's the companies going in logging and mining - that's the real threat today.
On What the Film Means to Her
It reaffirmed the fact of that childhood dream, and the amazing influence of my mother, who supported that dream when everybody else laughed at me [or said] I couldn't do it 'cause I was a girl, sort of thing. I think what'll come out of it is more young women - more people, too, not just women, but men in disadvantaged communities - will take out a sense of, 'She did it. I can do it, too.'
We need that desperately in these times because we're living in a very frightening world. For children who actually think about it, it is intimidating and daunting and makes them lose hope. And that's why Roots & Shoots is so important. If you can say, 'The world's a mess. But you live here. And what you do here, you can see the result.' I've cleaned the river, I've saved these animals, I've helped at a dog shelter. And then you know that there are young people just like you, with just the same passion, and they're doing just the same good as you are.
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