Dr. JANE GOODALL
To a little girl growing up in war-battered England in the 1940s, the stories of Tarzan and Dr. Dolittle, who lived in the jungles of Africa with their wild companions, were enchanting and inspiring. That young girl was Jane Goodall, and while she grew up determined to share a forest home with African wildlife, she may not have expected that doing so would lead her to fame as a respected naturalist, one who changed forever the way we see the chimpanzee, our closest primate relative.
In the summer of 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa to study the area's chimpanzee population. Although it was unheard of for a woman to venture into the wilds of the African forest, the trip meant the fulfillment of Jane's childhood dream. Her work in Tanzania would prove more successful than anyone ever imagined.
Jane lived at Gombe almost full-time until 1975 accumulating a wealth of long-term data still valued by today's researchers. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation, a world-wide organization located in 9 countries. Today, the mission of the Jane Goodall Institute is to advance the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment for ALL living things. The Institute is a leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats and is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa like the Roots & Shoots education program in more than 70 countries.
Dr. Jane's message also includes her work to promote world peace. Today, she spends about 300 days a year lecturing, sharing her message of hope for the future and encouraging young people to make a difference in their world. Her reason for hope lies in the indomitable nature of the human spirit. There are so many people who have dreamed seemingly unattainable dreams and, because they never gave up, achieved their goals against all the odds, or blazed a path along which others could follow. As Dr. Jane travels around the world, she meets so many incredible and amazing human beings that inspire her...and others.
To Learn More About JGI:
http://www.janegoodall.org
JGI Resources:
http://www.janegoodall.org
http://www.rootsandshoots.org
