Jane Goodall, dogged advocate for the natural world, has died aged 91

Renowned conservationist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91. She spent decades studying and advocating for chimpanzees, became the world’s leading expert on our closest primate relatives and transformed our understanding of humankind. She leaves behind a towering legacy of empathy and care for the natural world. According to a 1 October statement from the Jane Goodall Institute, she died of natural causes while in California on a speaking tour.

Goodall began studying chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960. She made monumental strides in understanding their behaviours and group dynamics. Over the following 65 years, she became not just an expert but an outspoken advocate, teaching the world about the similarities between humans and other primates and shedding light on the plight chimpanzees and other animals in the wild face from climate change, poaching and habitat destruction.

In 1977, she established her eponymous institute, a non-profit with the goal of studying and protecting primates and their habitats while increasing public understanding of the natural world. Over time, the institute’s mission expanded beyond studying primates – for example, by starting community health initiatives across Africa and even forming a committee dedicated to protecting whales. Goodall was also a founder or board member for countless other environmental protection initiatives.

She cited extraordinary patience as key to her achievements. “There were moments when I was depressed, and the chimps were running away, and I was a long time in the field. I thought: oh bother, drat. [But] if I’d given up, I would never have forgiven myself. I could never live with myself,” she told New Scientist in 2022.

Later in her life, Goodall spent most of her energy on conservation activism, travelling the world to get out the message that animals – all of them, not just chimpanzees – and humanity aren’t so different after all. She never stopped pushing for us to treat the natural world better.