A Light in the Forest - Farewell to Dame Jane Goodall

The world feels just a little less magical this week.

Dame Jane Goodall - trailblazing scientist, tireless conservationist, reluctant celebrity and eternal friend of the forest, has left us and in the hush that follows her passing, there's a deep sense that something truly rare has gone. Not just a person, but a presence - calm, wise, patient and profoundly kind.

It’s hard to write about Jane Goodall without sounding a little poetic. Partly because she lived so close to nature that her life seemed to echo its rhythms and partly because her story reads like something out of a fable.

A young woman, with no degree and little money, travels from England to Africa armed only with a notebook, a pair of binoculars and a great deal of courage. She sits and sits and waits, observing quietly and eventually, the forest answers back.

She made friends with chimpanzees. That alone would have been enough to win her a spot in history books. But what she learned from them changed the way we see the natural world.

Her discovery that chimpanzees made and used tools was a seismic moment in science, upending the long-held belief that only humans were capable of such innovation. "We must now redefine tool," her mentor Louis Leakey said at the time, "or redefine man."

It’s fair to say that Jane did a bit of both.

But she didn’t just record their behaviour with clinical detachment. She gave them names - David Greybeard, Flo, Fifi and recognised their personalities. She spoke about their empathy, their humour, their tempers and in doing so, she dared to say what few scientists would have admitted at the time - that animals are not just biological machines. They are thinking, feeling beings. She saw them not as specimens, but as neighbours.

Let’s be honest - it takes a particular kind of person to walk into the Tanzanian jungle in her twenties and earn the trust of a group of wild chimpanzees. It takes even more to walk out of that jungle decades later and try to talk sense into the United Nations, corporate boards and climate deniers. But that was Jane. Gracefully stubborn. Impossibly persuasive. The sort of person who could scold you gently without you even realising it until you were halfway through planting a tree.

She had a steely backbone beneath her soft-spoken manner. No megaphone, no moral grandstanding - just a clear-eyed conviction that the world could be better if only we tried a little harder to understand it. She believed in slow change, deep listening and getting muddy if need be. (Let’s be honest - it often was need be.)

As her fame grew, so did her mission. She swapped fieldwork for a life on the road and what a road it was. More than 300 days a year, for decades, Jane travelled the world to speak to packed theatres, bewildered policymakers, classrooms full of wide-eyed children and occasionally, rooms of sceptics who’d been softened before she even finished her first sentence.

She founded the Jane Goodall Institute, Roots & Shoots and an entire movement dedicated to the belief that small actions matter. Her message wasn’t one of fear, but of hope. That yes, things are dire, but no, it’s not too late. Not if we work together. Not if we care enough.

And she did care. Fiercely. Quietly. Consistently. While many of our public figures shout into microphones, Jane listened. She had a gift for making people and animals, feel seen. She never lectured. She invited. She didn’t post angry think-pieces online (she’d rather plant a tree). She never once suggested the world owed her anything for all she had given. She gave because it was the right thing to do.

In a world increasingly dominated by noisy outrage and performative politics, where keyboard warriors posture and ego often drowns out empathy - Jane Goodall was a rare and needed antidote. She showed us that you don’t have to raise your voice to raise awareness. That humility and intelligence can coexist. That there is power in stillness and that the most meaningful change usually begins with a cup of tea and a long conversation.

Imagine, for a moment, if the world had more Jane Goodalls and fewer shouty opportunists in expensive suits. Fewer political chest-beaters, and more gentle forest-dwellers with clipboards. Less noise and more thought. Less ego and more listening. What a better, quieter, kinder place this might be.

Because Jane didn’t just teach us about chimpanzees. She taught us about ourselves. That we, too, are part of nature, not separate from it. That we are at our best when we care for one another and for the world we live in. That reverence is not old-fashioned. And that hope is not naïve, it’s necessary.

She once said, “What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Jane made the kind of difference that can’t be easily measured. It echoes in forests where chimpanzees still roam. It whispers in the voices of young environmentalists she inspired. It lingers in the soft footsteps of every person who tries, in their own small way, to tread more gently on the Earth.

So now we say goodbye. Not with fanfare - she wouldn't have wanted that, but with deep gratitude. For the example she set. For the path she cleared and for the quiet, persistent love she showed a world that desperately needed it.

Thank you, Jane.

You were, and always will be, a light in the forest.

If you’d like to listen to a truly delightful interview with Jane from not that long ago, go here. It’s magical and soul-cleansing - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0thuGkAG5UgBz1uug9YG99?si=nZ8wQvNTTGak5npCY6t_yg

If you’d like to share your thoughts or discuss further, feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear from you. +64 275 665 682 john.luxton@regenerationhq.co.nz