In the Footsteps of Jane Goodall

Science, compassion, and courage in an age of government shutdowns and silencing.

We are under stress right now in the middle of a government shutdown. I have friends and loved ones being impacted by it, and I know how hard it is to live with that uncertainty. At first, I thought about writing to you about the shutdown, in a sea of what will be countless takes on how people view it and their opinions. But today, I want to sit in the moment and think about Jane. My hope is that, regardless of your politics, as you read this, something in her story inspires you.

The summer after my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, I went back home to El Paso. I enrolled in a course at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). It was an anthropology class, and that’s where I was first introduced to Jane Goodall. I saw in her a path: a woman who looked beyond boundaries, who gave us permission to ask better questions about who we are. Her story lit a spark in me, showing me that science could be about curiosity, compassion, and courage.

When she arrived at Gombe Stream National Park in 1960, she had no formal scientific training. That, in fact, was part of her gift: she observed without the rigid assumptions of academia. She named the chimpanzees she studied—David Greybeard, Flo, and Fifi—at a time when science insisted on using numbers, not names. She insisted that they were individuals, not objects of study. Her findings were revolutionary: chimpanzees were observed making and using tools, a behavior once thought to be uniquely human. She uncovered their hidden lives, hunting, eating meat, forging bonds, grieving, fighting, and reconciling. They had culture, learned traditions passed from one generation to the next. Those discoveries didn’t just change primatology. They changed how we think about ourselves. The line we had drawn between “human” and “animal” blurred.

From Scientist to Advocate

Jane could have stayed in Gombe forever, her pen and notebooks filling with discoveries. But she chose a more challenging path, the path of turning science into action.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, now a global leader in wildlife protection, community-led conservation, and education. In 1991, she launched Roots & Shoots, a youth-led program that today spans more than 60 countries.

Her vision was holistic: you can’t protect chimpanzees without protecting forests, and you can’t protect forests without working with the people who live there. Through initiatives like the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education (TACARE) program, she connected reforestation, sustainable agriculture, girls’ education, and microcredit for women.

Looking back, Jane Goodall’s legacy is less about any single discovery and more about the principles that animated her work:

• Humility and openness. She once said, “Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, shall all be saved.”

• Hope with action. Even in her final years, she carried a relentless optimism: “Nature is amazingly resilient … places we have destroyed, given time and help, can once again support life.”

• Compassion across species. By naming the chimps, she forced us to see them as beings with personality and agency.

• Science as resistance. She challenged orthodoxy, first by documenting tool use, then by refusing to separate science from advocacy.

These were not abstract ideals. They were lessons for a fractured world, lessons that matter urgently now. We need Jane Goodall’s example to guide us.

Today, politicians play shutdown games that harm federal workers and erode agencies while boasting about fiscal responsibility. Science, institutions, and truth have become bargaining chips in the hands of those insulated from the consequences. Even Jane Goodall’s Institute felt this: earlier this year, its Hope Through Action project faced funding cuts from the U.S. government under Donald Trump, despite a $29.5 million pledge over five years.

Goodall’s life reminds us that science isn’t abstract. It is human. It is moral. It is about survival. When we gut research budgets, when we dismiss climate science, when we silence federal experts, we are not saving money; we are burning the future.

She also teaches us about dialogue across divisions:

“Change happens by listening, then starting a dialogue with the people doing something you don’t believe is right.”

And she forces us to confront a deeper question: Is an animal more our best friend than our neighbor?

In Gombe, she saw chimps grieve, nurture, and protect. They were not “other.” They were kin. In a society that struggles even to see our human neighbors with compassion, her work unsettles us. What does it mean if we can empathize with animals but not with each other? Or perhaps the reverse: if we learn to extend compassion across species, might we relearn it across human divides as well?

When Jane Goodall died at 91 this week, tributes poured in from around the globe. They called her a scientist, a conservationist, a visionary. But her most important title was witness.

She bore witness to the lives of chimpanzees, the destruction of forests, the resilience of communities, and the hope of young people.

Her words echo for me now:

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

So yes, I do worry about government shutdowns. I worry about the erosion of science and the hollowing out of public goods. I worry about the traps laid by political operatives who thrive on chaos. The farther I step from the government, the more clearly I see this reality.

But in dark times, we can choose to be witnesses. We can choose action, compassion, and resistance. And if we do, we honor Jane Goodall’s greatest gift: the reminder that what we do matters. That choice, that courage, is her gift and her legacy to all of us.

More soon,

Olivia