Jane Goodall felt a strong bond to the animal world and Africa long before she traveled there as a young woman. Working hard as a secretary in England, Jane saved enough money to fund her first trip to Kenya. There she met the husband-and-wife team of Mary and Louis Leaky who were studying apes in the wild. In 1960, the Leaky’s gave Jane the opportunity of a lifetime: to go into the Gombe National Park, a remote jungle in Tanzania for a long term project to study chimpanzees. She was perfect for the job because she had no training as a scientist and would not make assumptions about the animals she would observe. Jane’s years spent in the jungle led to many ground breaking discoveries about chimps, and our relationship to nature. She was the first to observe chimpanzees using branches to dig termites out of their nest. This shattered the basic assumption that only humans made tools and used them for specific purposes, which was thought to be the great divide between us and animal world. She also discovered that chimps make plans that showed that they were aware of their actions and consequences. Like humans, chimps go to war, can experience awe, use certain plants for medicine, adopt orphaned infants, and are not vegetarian. She even discovered that chimpanzees use different sounds to speak a certain type of language. Before Jane’s discoveries, scientists did not believe animals had emotions or personalities. Jane’s research showed how closely related we are to the other animals on Earth and to the planet we share.
From the very beginning of her work in Africa, Jane realized that chimpanzees and other species were in danger. When she began her work in Tanzania in 1960, there were an estimated 2 million chimpanzees across Africa. By 2005, that number plummeted to 125,000, making them an endangered species. Very early in her work, Jane began campaign of speeches and writings to raise awareness of the threat we humans are to the animals of our planet. She has traveled all over the world raising awareness for the plight of the chimpanzees and has written more than thirty books. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which emphasizes the power of individuals to make a difference for all living things, and the Chimpanzee Guardian Project in Tanzania, which protects chimpanzees and their habitats. In 1991, Jane founded a grassroots organization for youth called Roots and Shoots that has grown to more than eight thousand groups in one hundred countries. The organization was founded on the belief that knowledge leads to compassion and that compassion leads to action. Jane also believes that people acting together are stronger than individuals working alone. Click here to learn more about Roots and Shoots and to see if their is a group in your community.
Summer vacation is here at last! As your kids embark on their three months of freedom, you can keep their minds, bodies and souls engaged by taking them to visit a wildlife refuge. Across the country, tucked away in Bayous and canyons, estuaries and marshes, hundreds of wildlife refuges are open to the public. These pristine sanctuaries are living and breathing classrooms of ecology and are a rare opportunity to see ecosystems in there unadulterated state.
I recently ventured to the southern Maine coast and visited the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is scattered along 50 miles of coastline, but accessible in the town of Wells. A well maintained trail guides visitors through woods and along the periphery of estuaries and salt marshes. Young visitors can observe migratory birds species nesting and listen to the reeds rustle along the banks of the salt marshes. This is a great opportunity to write and draw in a nature journal, play “I Spy” with native flora and fauna or learn about the local ecosystem.
To find a wildlife refuge in your area, visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services website, and be sure to check out their ideas for visiting with kids.
“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” -Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson, (1907-1964) was a writer, a scientist, an ecologist and a brave advocate for the environment. As a young girl, Rachel’s mother nurtured her daughter’s love of nature. She studied the sea, plants and wildlife, and taught others about the living world around them through her books and articles. As a young woman, she became the Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where she wrote pamphlets on natural resources and conservation. Carson strongly believed that people are integrally linked with nature, and must learn to care for it, rather than overpower it. One article she wrote, “Help Your Child to Wonder,” (1956) aimed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world.
In 1962, Carson published the book SILENT SPRING, and with it the environmental movement was born. The book was written to raise awareness of the great harm that synthetic chemical pesticides had on the environment. It took great courage for Carson to speak out against the agriculture and chemical industries. But she firmly believed that we as human beings are just as vulnerable to the toxic pesticides we spray on our fields, homes and trees as the insects themselves are. In defending her book, Rachel Carson stated: “We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature.”
