The enduring hope of Dr. Jane Goodall
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
In 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived with her mother at Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in western Tanzania. What followed was truly a story for the ages. Her work transformed how humans interact with and understand the natural world. Dr. Jane Goodall passed away last month at the age of 91. Dr. Goodall will be remembered as an ethologist and conservationist whose life and work not only made an indelible mark on our understanding of chimpanzees and other species, but also of humankind and the environments we all share. Author Douglas Abrams, who co-wrote “The Book of Hope” with Jane Goodall, joins USA TODAY’s The Excerpt to discuss her legacy of hope.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived with her mother at Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in western Tanzania. |
| 0:12.8 | What followed was truly a story for the ages. |
| 0:15.9 | Her work transformed, how humans interact with, and understand the natural world. Dr. Jane Goodall passed away |
| 0:23.0 | last month at the age of 91. |
| 0:30.5 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excert. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, November 27, 2025. |
| 0:53.1 | Dr. Goodall will be remembered as an ethologist and conservationist whose life and work not only made an indelible mark on our understanding of chimpanzees and other species, but also of humankind and the environments we all share. Joining me to discuss her legacy of hope is author |
| 0:56.1 | Douglas Abrams, who co-wrote The Book of Hope with Jane Goodall. Thank you so much for taking |
| 1:01.7 | the time to join me, Douglas. Great to be here with you, Dana. Jane Goodall made groundbreaking |
| 1:07.0 | discoveries in the natural world, and I'm most moved by how she documented the rich emotional dynamics of chimpanzees. |
| 1:14.6 | It required an extraordinary level of patience and respect. |
| 1:19.6 | What resonates with you most when you think of Jane Goodall's work? |
| 1:23.6 | I should say it was an extraordinary privilege to be able to work with Jane and to learn |
| 1:29.5 | both about her pioneering discoveries with chimpanzees and her understanding of how we are |
| 1:36.0 | really part of a much larger tree of life and deeply related to these Simeon cousins, but also |
| 1:43.1 | what we were particularly looking at was |
| 1:45.5 | her discoveries for humanity and who we are. And that was really what her mentor, Louis Leakey, |
| 1:53.0 | sent her into the bush to find out was not just what chimpanzees were like, but what chimpanzees |
| 1:59.4 | might reveal about us. And can you briefly share some of her early work in Gombe and where that work stands today? |
| 2:06.6 | Yeah, she was one of the first to really discover that chimpanzees used tools, like humans used tools, |
| 2:15.6 | which was an enormous breakthrough in our understanding of the |
| 2:20.6 | intelligence and the creativity and the ingenuity of chimpanzees and how we were not the only species |
| 2:28.8 | that might use tools. She also discovered that chimpanzees had emotions, they had personalities. |
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