Jane Goodall — "I think the most important thing is to instill in children a love of nature."
I think the most important thing is to instill in children a love of nature.
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More from Jane Goodall
"Every animal has a right to live, and we should respect that right."
"The world is full of wonders, and it's our job to protect them."
"I'm often asked if I'm an optimist or a pessimist. I say I'm a 'possibilist.'"
"The future of the planet depends on us."
"I believe that there is hope for the future, as long as we don't give up."
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
The quote argues that nurturing children's genuine affection for the natural world is the single most foundational investment society can make. When children develop an emotional bond with nature — not just textbook knowledge of it — they grow into adults motivated to protect it. Early wonder drives lifelong behavior far more effectively than any policy imposed on adults who never formed that connection in the first place.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall's career was shaped by a childhood curiosity she never outgrew — as a girl she spent hours quietly observing animals in her garden. Her six decades studying chimpanzees in Gombe taught her that deep understanding flows from patient, loving attention. Her Roots & Shoots program, now active in over 100 countries, directly enacts this belief by connecting millions of young people to conservation through hands-on engagement with living nature.
The era
Goodall has been most vocal across the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a period of accelerating habitat destruction, mass species extinction, and climate disruption. Simultaneously, urbanization and screen-saturated childhoods have severed daily childhood contact with the natural world. Researchers coined 'nature deficit disorder' to name this gap. Her message carries urgency: without emotional roots formed early, future generations may simply lack the motivation to defend ecosystems they have never loved.
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