Jane Goodall — "My greatest joy is seeing young people get involved in conservation. They are th…"
My greatest joy is seeing young people get involved in conservation. They are the future.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Jane Goodall
"We must never give up hope. We must continue to fight for what is right."
"The more I learn about animals, the more I realize how much we have in common."
"If we don't change our ways, we are heading for disaster."
"Every single creature on this planet has a right to exist."
"Chimpanzees, more than any other living creature, have helped us to understand that there is no sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom."
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.
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
The quote says the most fulfilling thing is watching young people commit to protecting nature. It conveys that conservation work outlasts any individual—lasting change requires the next generation to care and act. Youth involvement isn't merely encouraging; it's existentially necessary. The speaker finds deep personal joy in this because it signals that the work they dedicated their life to will continue and expand long after them.
Relevance to Jane Goodall
Goodall spent decades in Tanzania studying chimpanzees, but by the 1990s shifted from fieldwork to global advocacy after witnessing accelerating habitat destruction. In 1991 she founded Roots & Shoots, a youth-led environmental program now active in 60-plus countries. She travels roughly 300 days a year speaking to students worldwide. This quote reflects her deliberate pivot: trusting the next generation to carry forward the mission she built her entire life around.
The era
Goodall delivered this message amid accelerating environmental crisis—deforestation, climate change, and species collapse dominating global headlines. The 2010s and 2020s saw youth climate activism surge with Fridays for Future and school strikes reaching millions globally. Wild chimpanzee populations fell below 200,000 from over a million a century earlier. Governments signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 but enforcement lagged, making grassroots youth engagement feel like the more durable long-term force for real conservation change.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].