Here’s why conservationists want Jane Goodall to win the Nobel Prize

British primatologist Jane Goodall visits a chimpanzee rescue center on June 9, 2018 in Entebbe, Uganda. Source: Sumy Sadurni/AFP

By Mongabay | 12th October 2018

MORE than 30 scientists and leaders in environmental conservation are calling for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award Jane Goodall with the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

Citing the 84-year-old primatologist’s groundbreaking discoveries in the 1960s that blurred the lines between animals and humans, such as tool use in chimpanzees, as well as her ongoing, decades-long campaign to protect our planet, the group argues that her life’s work has been a quest for global harmony.

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Her early work studying chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, situated in what would become Tanzania, revealed that “our similarities with animals are far greater than are our differences,” writes the group of researchers, authors and teachers from 16 countries, on the website Change.org.

“We must see ourselves as partners not only with other humans, but also with chimpanzees and all the other creatures who walk, swim, crawl, and fly on the face of the earth,” they add.

At the time of publication, more than 2,600 people had signed the online petition in support of the prize for Goodall.

Young researcher Jane Goodall with baby chimpanzee Flint at Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania. Source: Jane Goodall Institute/Hugo van Lawick/Mongabay.

The coalition argues that Goodall’s work demonstrates the importance of a broad interpretation of what peace on Earth means.

Today, as she has for decades, Goodall travels some 300 days a year, speaking as an advocate for the environment and as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Her message, though one of warning that humanity and the planet on which we depend are at a crossroads, is also flecked with hope that all is not lost.

“The lust for greed and power has destroyed the beauty we inherited, but altruism, compassion and love have not been destroyed,” Goodall wrote in The New York Times in 2017.

“All that is beautiful in humanity has not been destroyed. The beauty of our planet is not dead but lying dormant, like the seeds of a dead tree. We shall have another chance.”

Goodall is pictured during a visit to the chimp rescue center on June 9, 2018 in Entebbe, Uganda.
During her visit at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre. Source: Sumy Sadurni/AFP

In 1977, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports projects ranging from agroforestry to micro-lending to primate research.

Roots and Shoots, a program the institute started in 1991, focuses on environmental education, encouraging young people around the world to make sustainable choices. Goodall also leads by example — she’s a vegetarian out of concern for the treatment of animals and the damage that industrial livestock farming can inflict on the environment.

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“Jane’s message to us is that there are no substitutes for peaceful coexistence,” the group writes. “For humans, who have the power to destroy the Earth, its inhabitants, and all types of landscapes, peace is something far greater than merely the lack of warfare among humans.

“A Nobel Peace Prize for Jane Goodall underscores that humans must not be at war with nature,” they say, “but rather that true harmony and peace is only possible when humans live sustainably on our planet.”

Jane Goodall is a member of Mongabay’s advisory board.

This article was republished from Mongabay.