Jane Goodall (1934-2025): The necessity of hope

Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91.

Over the course of six decades, she moved from an unlikely young researcher in the forests of East Africa to one of the most recognisable scientists and conservationists of her time. Her patient fieldwork at Gombe transformed primatology, overturning entrenched beliefs about the uniqueness of humans and forcing science to reckon with animal minds.

She went on to found the Jane Goodall Institute, launch sanctuaries and community programs across Africa, and inspire millions through her Roots & Shoots movement for young people. Her influence reached far beyond science: she became a United Nations Messenger of Peace, an advocate for animal welfare, and a tireless voice for conservation at a time of mounting global crisis. Yet through all of this she remained known simply as “Jane”, a figure who insisted that hope was not naïve but necessary.

When she stepped into the forests of Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania in 1960, she carried little more than a notebook, binoculars, and an unlikely determination. She was not a scientist by training, but a young woman from Bournemouth with a...

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