Under observation by Jane Goodall

I once met Jane Goodall, the renowned environmentalist, who died last week. 

It was in 2003 and I was Head of Delegation and EU Ambassador to Tanzania. We had a massive programme of cooperation with the country, focusing on infrastructure and agriculture. We were also funding projects to protect the environment in many of Tanzania’s wildlife parks and reserves. These included the small park of Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where for many years Jane Goodall had been observing chimpanzees. There she made the astonishing discovery that our closest relatives in the animal world use tools, a skill that was previously thought to be reserved to our primate species. She also found out that, in certain circumstances, chimpanzees will kill one another and even wage war.

In Gombe, Jane’s organisation, Roots and Shoots, was involving local people in productive activities in order to protect the park, and the EU had funded some of this work. My environment expert in the Delegation briefed me that the funds had not always been used exactly for the intended activities.  He advised me to insist that all previous funds be properly accounted for before agreeing to advance any new money.

So when Jane Goodall arrived for our meeting at the new EU Delegation, I was in cautious mode, eager to listen to this famous person making her pitch for new funding, but also prepared to insist on proper accountability. 

However, instead of asking for new EU funding, Jane Goodall sat in a chair, not opposite but beside me, and said nothing. The slim woman, her blonde hair tied back in a bow, simply looked at me, smiling. This made me feel uneasy, and the more she saw this, the more she kept observing me. I found myself talking, not very coherently, about EU support for the environment. She just sat still without saying a word. It felt as though she were trying to assess what sort of an alpha male primate she was sitting beside. 

After a few minutes of this disturbing silence Jane took out of her handbag a fluffy toy baby chimpanzee and handed it to me.

What was I to do with a fluffy toy ? Of course I held it, but how should I hold it? On my lap? Against my heart? At arm’s length ? This was my first post as a Head of Delegation and EU Ambassador and I had a certain idea of the dignity of my position. There were a dozen people in the room, including my own staff, and it felt ridiculous to be holding a toy chimpanzee in front of them. 

When Jane Goodall finally spoke she said that she had placed the same chimpanzee in the hands of world leaders including Mikael Gorbatchev and Kofi Annan, and she found that the meetings with them had gone very well.

I don’t recall the rest of our meeting at the EU Delegation in Dar es salaam, but I know that from the beginning to the end Jane Goodall had me in the palm of her hand, and the EU did help fund later Roots and Shoots projects. 

As Jane Goodall left Umoja House we posed for a photo in front of the flags of the EU Member States which are flown inside EU Delegations the world over. Her wide green eyes fix the camera confidently, while I am still left holding the chimpanzee. Over the next twenty years she became one of the foremost spokespersons for nature, protecting the environment and combating climate change, someone who inspired millions of people, young and old, all over the world.

Through her many years of observing primates Jane Goodall discovered how closely we are connected to one another and to the natural world. She shared her unique understanding with us. She believed that ‘each of us makes a difference and that we have to decide what sort of difference we will make. She gave us all ‘reason for hope’.