Jane Goodall — "If we don't save the planet, we don't save ourselves."
If we don't save the planet, we don't save ourselves.
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More from Jane Goodall
"The more I learn about animals, the more I love them."
"We need to teach our children to be compassionate, and to care about all living things."
"We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make a difference. It's up to us to decide what kind of difference we're going to make."
"We are at a critical point in time. We need to act now to save the planet."
"I believe in a spiritual power, but I don't necessarily identify with any particular religion."
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
Human survival and planetary health are not separate concerns — they are the same concern. The quote dismantles the idea that environmentalism is charity toward nature. Clean air, fresh water, stable climate, and functioning ecosystems are the literal infrastructure of human life. Destroy them and no economy, technology, or civilization can compensate. It is a pragmatic argument: protecting the planet is the most direct form of self-interest a species can exercise.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall spent decades at Tanzania's Gombe Stream studying chimpanzees, then watched their forest habitat shrink from deforestation. That shift turned pure scientist into global activist. She founded Roots & Shoots, a youth conservation program in 140 countries, and travels over 300 days a year speaking. Her research established that chimps share roughly 98% of human DNA — making the line between their fate and ours biologically, not just philosophically, thin.
The era
Goodall's career spans the postwar industrial boom through today's accelerating climate crisis. The 1980s brought mass Amazon deforestation and first major warnings about the ozone layer. By the 1990s, IPCC reports confirmed rising temperatures and species were disappearing at 1,000 times the natural rate. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol marked humanity's first binding climate commitment. Her quote lands in this era as a correction: the data no longer permitted treating conservation as optional.
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