[ad_1]
Table of Contents
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone on the planet who isn’t impressed with the conservation work of Dame Jane Goodall. Haveli Investments founder Brian Sheth shared a revealing and forthright conversation with her during a Milken Institute Global Conference.
Dr. Jane Goodall. Image credit: The jane Goodall Institute via Facebook
At first, the friendship between the self-made entrepreneur and the primatologist icon might seem unlikely. But the bond between the two — strengthened by a love of wildlife and a passion for preserving habitats — is undeniable.
“I think everybody at this point knows a whole lot about Jane and her work and what she’s done,” Sheth said during the panel. “Jane was an intrepid explorer, adventurer, became a scientist, and really taught the world what it is about our incredibly close cousins, the chimpanzees, and in doing so, taught us a lot about ourselves.
“She’s gone on to become one of the leading advocates for animal protection, biodiversity, and species preservation. She travels 300 days a year to tell her story and the story of why we need to protect our planet to people all over the world.
“And she’s impacted not just scientists, but through her global programs, JGI [The Jane Goodall Institute] and [international youth program] Roots and Shoots, literally hundreds of thousands of children across the world have created programs to protect the environment in their home countries. She’s a U.N. messenger of peace, my two children’s favorite person. She is Dame Jane.”
It All Started With Books
When Goodall, just 26 years old, traveled from England to what is now Tanzania to study chimpanzees in 1960, she unlocked the wondrous world of the primates for generations to come. Goodall said she grew up with a strong love for animals under the guidance of a supportive mother who never freaked out when she sneaked worms into her bed as a toddler. “She got books for me about animals, thinking I’d learn to read more quickly,” Goodall recalled.
With no money to go to university, Goodall said she enrolled in a “boring” secretarial course. But her life changed when an old classmate sent a letter inviting her to Kenya for a holiday. Goodall shared that she worked as a waitress to save the money to take the trip.
Once there, the bold budding anthropologist called legendary archaeologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey. “I went to meet him and he took me all around the Natural History Museum in Nairobi.”
The pair hit it off, and Leakey hired Goodall in a secretarial position — but she wasn’t taking dictation and typing letters for long. Leakey was looking for a chimpanzee researcher, and Goodall fit the bill.
When Goodall initially set out on this mission, her mother, who’d traveled to Africa with her, warned her nothing about her pursuit would be easy and that if she really wanted it, she’d have to work awfully hard for it. Goodall was clearly up for the task.
“There was no playbook for this,” Brian Sheth marveled about Goodall’s earliest days studying chimpanzees in the wild.
Goodall said she leaned into her natural talent for observing animals with immense wonder and curiosity. At first, the chimps were fearful of her. but she persevered and broke through.
She remembered the unforgettable day when she was walking through the forest after a rainstorm. She witnessed a chimp breaking twigs, making a tool to poke for termites. “If you saw that today, it wouldn’t be exciting, but then it was because science had defined us as the only creature on the planet to use and make tools,” she described. “We were defined as ‘man the toolmaker.’ And I don’t know what women were supposed to be. They’re actually better at using tools in many cases.”
Goodall said everything essentially changed as a result of that finding, and Brian Sheth wholeheartedly agrees. “That really garnered a tremendous amount of interest after that,” he said.
Goodall said National Geographic sent a photographer to capture footage. She eventually went on to pursue a Ph.D. at Cambridge — one of only a handful of scholars permitted to receive a doctorate without first earning an undergraduate degree. Goodall later returned to Tanzania to expand her work throughout the continent of Africa.
“From a governmental standpoint, Jane spends a lot of time giving hope and lecturing folks sometimes on what they should be doing, but she’s more enlightened than most,” Brian Sheth observed.
“She has more patience than most of us. I spend some of my time doing the less patient lecturing of some of our elected officials. What I continue to try and to tell them is, ‘Listen to our scientists.’ I’m sure it’s different outside of the United States, but maybe not much. It’s incredible how much policy is done without consulting informed scientists.”
As an investor, Brian Sheth said he’d never buy a software company without having his tech people explain exactly how the technology works and what impact that technology has on the broader ecosystem. “Unfortunately, what we’ve seen time and again, even our inspired politicians who want to make a difference don’t always interact with the right people to tell them how to make a difference.”
Sheth’s advice remains: “Spend more time with your scientists.”
Goodall added that often, some environmentalists get caught up in blaming big corporations for destroying forests or polluting the oceans. “At least in a democracy, we elect the politicians and if we buy the products, we shouldn’t point fingers at the company. We have more power than we think if everybody uses their voice.”
[ad_2]
Source link
