Farewell to Jane Goodall — Population Activist

Pioneering English primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025) passed away last week at the age of 91. In the days since, numerous, well-deserved and glowing tributes have paid homage to her inspirational achievements and legacy.

Starting in 1960, this animal lover, with no college degree but imbued with a sense of adventure, curiosity and courage — the essential ingredients of authentic scientific endeavor — began conducting field research on wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in the East African country of Tanzania. For much of the time in those early years, she was a twenty-something woman alone in the wild.

Mentored by another scientific pioneer, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey (1903-1972), Goodall’s findings challenged conventional wisdom about cognitive abilities long thought to be uniquely human. She discovered that wild chimps make and use tools, hunt cooperatively, and possess an array of complex social structures and emotions once regarded as ours alone. She shared her findings with the public in her best-selling 1971 book In the Shadow of Man and many other writings. The National Geographic Society supported and featured her work.

This iconic photo by Hugo Van Lawick of Jane Goodall and the infant chimpanzee Flint first appeared in National Geographic in the 1960s. Although it is no longer deemed appropriate to have physical contact with chimps in the wild, this image has long symbolized “biophilia” — our innate yearning to interact with other life forms.

In her later years, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute and became a respected advocate for wildlife conservation. In this role, she spoke out forcefully and often on the environmental perils posed by human overpopulation.

In a 2007 public forum in San Francisco, in her role as a U.N. Messenger of Peace, Goodall was asked if overpopulation was a taboo subject. In her calm, self-assured manner, Goodall replied:

In 2019, speaking to a conference sponsored by Population Matters, an activist group of which she was a patron, Goodall said:

As one who spent much of her life in Africa and traveled widely in her role as a conservation ambassador, Goodall raised the population issue in many different places and among many different peoples. She learned firsthand that ordinary folks were receptive to the idea of smaller family size and well aware of overpopulation pressures on nature. This contradicts the myth propagated by many overpopulation deniers that overpopulation worries only the affluent “Global North” and not those in developing nations most afflicted by the consequences of rapid population growth.

Goodall belonged to a generation of environmental pioneers who unflinchingly told it like it is on overpopulation — leaders like Gaylord Nelson, David Brower, Donella Meadows, Dave Foreman and David Attenborough. These influencers both acknowledged the population issue and advocated for addressing it. Many of their voices have fallen silent with the passing of the years.

We live in an era when support for international family planning has sagged. Incredibly, many prominent men with enormous megaphones are calling for even more population growth. Here’s hoping Jane Goodall’s common sense can inspire a new generation of population activists on behalf of a besieged biosphere.