And because they get to choose it, they're passionate.” “And we decided that because in the rainforest you learn how everything is interconnected and every little species has a role to play - just as we all do - that every group would choose for themselves three projects: one to help people, one to help animals, one to help the environment. “We decided the main message would be: Every single one of us makes some impact on the planet every single day, and we get to choose what sort of impact we make,” Goodall explains. 'Every single one of us makes some impact on the planet every single day, and we get to choose what sort of impact we make.' Jane Goodall She began the program with 12 high school students who visited her at her home in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. But I didn't think it was true there was nothing they could do.” “They told me they felt depressed or apathetic or angry because we've compromised their future and there's nothing they can do about it. “I was meeting young people who seemed to have lost hope,” Goodall says. The program grew out of conversations she was having with young people.

Goodall’s youth program, Roots & Shoots, has also grown dramatically since she launched it in 1991. Related: Conservationists' noble goals often conflict with local cultures, according to a new book

It's now in 104 throughout the whole of chimp range.” It started with 12 villages around Gombe. “And because it's not just a grant given to them, but it's a loan, when they pay it back - and they do - now it's theirs. “The women - particularly the women - take out tiny loans for their own environmentally sustainable projects, like getting a few chickens, selling the eggs, having tree nurseries, sometimes a slightly bigger project like shade-grown coffee plantation or pineapples, or something like that,” Goodall explains. The Tacare program helps both local communities and conservation in several ways, such as using microcredit, based on Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank model. That's where we began our Tacare program, which is our method of community-based conservation.” “People struggling to survive - more than the land could support too poor to buy food from elsewhere. This is when it hit me: If we don't help them find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, then we can't even try to save the chimpanzees. “When I flew over in 1990, it was just this little island of trees surrounded by completely bare hills,” Goodall says. In the 1960s and 70s, Gombe was part of a great equatorial forest belt that stretched from western East Africa to the west coast of the continent. In Africa, she learned about the plight facing so many of the people living in and around the chimpanzee habitat she studied. Jane Goodall on her work with chimpanzees, and the new documentary ‘JANE’ And it's been a long battle, but, finally, with others helping, we have got chimps out of medical research.” The first thing I had to do was make myself go into those labs because you've got to see it firsthand. I went as a scientist, I left as an activist. And I certainly had no idea about what went on in the medical research labs. “I had no idea the speed with which chimp numbers were decreasing. I had no idea the extent of it,” she explains. 'I went as a scientist, I left as an activist.' Jane Goodall She attended a session on conservation and another on conditions in captive situations like medical research labs, and “it was a shock,” she says. And it was mainly to see how chimp behavior differed from environment to environment or didn't differ, as the case may be.” “It was the first time chimp researchers from different field sites in Africa came together because by then, there were six other field sites. “I helped to put that conference together,” Goodall says. She says she arrived as a researcher and left as an activist.

Goodall has described a pivotal moment in her life when she traveled from Gombe to a conference in Chicago. Now, 60 years on, the iconic scientist, naturalist and activist is still advocating passionately for the conservation of the natural world. Soon after, she realized that if chimps were to survive into the future, she had best speak out on their behalf, as well as for the forests and their human stewards. On July 14, 1960, at the age of 26, Jane Goodall arrived in what is now Gombe National Park, Tanzania, to begin her breakthrough study of wild chimpanzees.

Jane goodall chimpanzee research