Jane Goodall, who died on October 1, 2025 at the age of 91, changed how humanity understands animals, and in doing so, how we understand ourselves.
Her life’s work revealed that chimpanzees are not simply creatures of instinct, but beings with emotions, intelligence, and social bonds that echo our own. From her earliest days in the forests of Tanzania to her final years as a global advocate, Goodall lived with an unmatched sense of purpose.
In 1960, a 26‑year‑old Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream, Tanzania, with a notebook, a pair of binoculars, and an endless curiosity. Within months, she made discoveries that shocked the scientific world: chimpanzees using tools, chimpanzees hunting and eating meat, chimpanzees showing joy, grief, and even warlike aggression.
These observations collapsed the old idea that humans were set apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Louis Leakey, her mentor, famously said, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as human.”
Her groundbreaking science soon gave way to a wider calling. Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to protect chimpanzees and their forests. She launched Roots & Shoots in 1991, a youth program that grew from a dozen Tanzanian students to tens of thousands of young people in more than 70 countries.
Through these efforts, she championed not just wildlife, but also people and the planet. For her, conservation was always about connection — the health of the forest was tied to the well‑being of the communities who lived around it.
Over the decades, she became a traveling teacher for the world. With her soft voice and signature pant‑hoot greeting, she filled classrooms, conference halls, and United Nations assemblies with stories of chimpanzees and urgent calls to action.
She spoke against laboratory testing on great apes, rallied for habitat protection, and reminded audiences that the fight against climate change could not wait. At every turn she carried the same message: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
Her achievements brought her some of the highest honors imaginable, from damehood by Queen Elizabeth II to the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States. Yet she wore these accolades lightly, always redirecting attention back to the work at hand. She wanted people to look not at her, but at the chimpanzees of Gombe, the forests under threat, and the next generation who would inherit the earth.
Her enduring legacy
Goodall’s passing has been met with tributes from scientists, world leaders, and everyday admirers who saw in her a model of perseverance and hope. The Jane Goodall Institute continues its programs across Africa, protecting wild chimpanzees and restoring habitats. Roots & Shoots now counts hundreds of thousands of participants, carrying forward her belief that young people are the engine of change. Her books, from In the Shadow of Man to The Book of Hope, still remind readers that optimism is not naïve, but necessary.
Perhaps the truest measure of her legacy is the shift in how people think about animals. Thanks to Goodall, it is now common to speak of chimpanzees as individuals, to recognize the emotions of elephants, or to argue for the rights of dolphins and whales. Her quiet revolution was not only about science, but about empathy.
In remembering Jane Goodall, we remember the little girl who once hid in a henhouse for hours just to see how a chicken lays an egg. That same patience and curiosity carried her across continents and decades, into the forests of Tanzania and the halls of power. She leaves behind not just research papers or awards, but a living movement that continues to remind us: we are not separate from nature, we are part of it.
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