Meeting Jane Goodall

Meeting Jane Goodall

by Georgia Malbon

When I speak the name Jane Goodall, most of you would probably look at me like I’m mental and ask me what I’m going on about. Well… what if I told you that this supposed “Jane Goodall” I speak of is an 80 year old woman who has dedicated her whole life towards chimpanzees and saving our planet earth.

Recently Me and three other girls: Kate, Kim and Delaney got the opportunity of a lifetime as we were chosen to represent our school and attend one of Jane Goodall famous talks and eventually meet her!

When we arrived at the Aotea Theater I was so nervous to talk to her…What was I going to say? I was definitely going to embarrass myself, probably end up asking her, what her name is or something ridiculous. But I had a whole hour to worry about that.

We were finally called into the theater and the atmosphere was entrancing. I was surrounded by people just like me. People who cared about the animals, the environment and the people of this planet. While we were seated I talked to a man who actually seemed interested in what I have to say. The one thing that got me was that I was sitting in a room full of adults who don’t actually think that they’re better than me and care about my opinion.

Then she came on. Her thin strands of grey hair, a bright orange shawl covering her frail shoulders and two small stuffed toys which I soon came to learn were her famous chimpanzee (Mr. H) and the cow. She walked up to the podium and looked out at us saying “I have Hope”. At that moment I believed her.

She talked about everything from her childhood where she had such a kick ass mum who traveled to Gombe in Africa with Jane so she could study chimpanzees, even though her mum hated the outdoors. Everyday Jane would leave early in the morning and go up into the bush and sit for hours on end. She would have sometimes a close encounter with a chimp but would always come back to their camp with low spirits.

The time and funds for her project were slowly running out, when in November 1960 as she was watching two chimps she named David Greybeard and Goliath and she made an amazing discovery. David and Goliath each plucked a strand of grass and stuck it into a termite mound pull it out with a bunch of termites hanging off it and eat them one by one. Now this doesn’t sound like anything, but this was one of the steps to proving that chimps had the same characteristics as humans.

She continued to talk about her home life and going to university and then she started to talk about something very important. She started to talk about how slowly our world was slipping away from us. How more and more people were being treated as slaves for the Western Worlds benefit and how every day a small fraction of the Natural World was being lost. She said that she has hope that we (the youth of planet earth) would someday help restore the world to the way it was. One thing she said that really stuck out to me and stayed in mind was: “Why are the smartest animals on the planet killing their one and only home?”.

We as the youth of day have a lot of pressure on us to undo the bad things that our parents and grandparents did. The hole in the ozone layer can never truly be fixed and we will never in our lifetime see the blue whale population thrive. But we can make the hole in the ozone layer stop getting bigger and maybe one day our children will be able to see the blue whale population thrive. It just takes one small thing to make a change.

When her talk was over she received a standing ovation and many tears were shed because from that talk she gave every single person in that theater a small glimpse of hope.

After the talk we were taken up to a small area where she was sitting there on a small chair smiling at us all. She signed books and tickets and answered all our questions... I didn’t ask what her name was thank God. One girl asked how to get her friends and people her age to realise that there was a problem in the world. Jane replied telling us to never argue with them but to have hope that one day something inside of them will click and they will realise that they need to take action.

I hope that this article can give some of you that click. That click to make you realise that there are millions of starving people working in unrealistic conditions just so you can buy that cheap t-shirt, or similar. One small thing such as maybe spending a bit more money on a fair trade t-shirt from factory or cotton on instead of buying a cheap t-shirt that a person in Africa made and will only get paid $0.10 for.

Even things like picking up a piece of rubbish you see and putting it in the bin or planting a fruit tree in your backyard. Every single thing you do makes a difference.

Websites such www.greenpeace.co.nz give you opportunities to stand up for what you believe just by signing a petition.

Jane Goodall herself has created a program called Roots and Shoots where teenagers from all around the world can discuss the problems whether it’s cultural or environmental and come up with ways to stop those problems from happening.

Please, this world needs us to make a change and we can’t do it on our own. In the words of Jane Goodall: “This is our only home and we have to do everything in our power to save it from the brink of extinction”.

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