Jane Goodall — "I like to think of myself as a storyteller, and my stories are about the animals…"
I like to think of myself as a storyteller, and my stories are about the animals and the planet.
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More from Jane Goodall
"Chimpanzees have taught me that we are not the only beings with personalities, minds, and, above all, feelings."
"If we don't change our ways, we are heading for disaster."
"The greatest lesson I learned from the chimpanzees is that we are not so different from them."
"We are all interconnected. What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves."
"My dream is a world where humans and animals can coexist in harmony."
About Jane Goodall (born 1934)
British primatologist who in 1960 began the longest-running wild primate study at Gombe Stream, transforming our understanding of chimpanzees. Closely associated with Dian Fossey (mountain-gorilla researcher) and Birutė Galdikas (orangutan researcher; together with Goodall and Fossey one of Louis Leakey's 'Trimates'). For an intellectual contrast, see Walter Palmer, American dentist who killed Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015 — Palmer represents the trophy-hunting tradition Goodall's life's work has been organized against — the colonial-era hunter-naturalist worldview that treated primates and big game as specimens or trophies, which Goodall's Roots & Shoots and Jane Goodall Institute exist specifically to displace.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Goodall frames herself not as a detached scientist reporting data, but as a narrator giving voice to creatures and ecosystems that cannot speak for themselves. She sees science and storytelling as inseparable — facts become meaningful when wrapped in narrative. Her conviction is that emotional connection, not information alone, moves people to protect the natural world. Understanding must be felt before it drives action.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall's entire career embodies this stance — she named the Gombe chimpanzees (Flo, David Greybeard, Frodo) rather than numbering them, a humanizing act that scandalized peers but made the animals real to the public. She wrote over 25 books, delivered thousands of lectures, and founded Roots & Shoots to inspire youth. Her evolution from field researcher to global advocate was always conducted through narrative, never dry policy briefs.
The era
Goodall's rise coincided with the birth of the environmental movement — Earth Day launched in 1970, the EPA founded the same year, and wildlife documentaries brought nature into homes via television for the first time. By the 1990s, biodiversity loss and deforestation had reached crisis levels. Her storytelling gave the statistics-heavy conservation debate a human face, making rainforest destruction and species extinction emotionally legible to ordinary people worldwide.
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