Honoring Jane Goodall’s legacy by supporting her favorite charities
By CNN Impact Your World and Martha Shade
(CNN) — Jane Goodall spent her life championing chimpanzees and working to prevent their extinction, while also supporting conservation efforts on every continent and advocating for the world’s poor.
In 1960, 26-year-old Goodall first traveled to Tanzania from her native England to work with chimpanzees. She was the first person to observe chimps making and using tools, shocking scientists who thought only humans had that capability. The discovery was hailed as one of the most significant scientific findings of the 20th century.
Whether you’d like to donate to some of her favorite charities, learn more about her work, take on a conservation project – or even consider going vegetarian – here are some of the organizations and causes that were closest to her heart.
Jane Goodall Institute
The Jane Goodall Institute works to protect the wild chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania – and all across Africa. It’s the culmination of her life’s work helping save chimpanzees from trafficking and habitat destruction.
But Goodall didn’t just care about the chimps.
She worried that a warming climate combined with deforestation, oil drilling and other human action was destroying the last wild places – and dooming all the creatures that call them home.
Youth Activism
Years after establishing her namesake institute, Goodall launched its popular youth program “Roots and Shoots” to encourage the next generation’s involvement with conservation. That initiative, which started with a small group of Tanzanian students, now has members in more than 120 countries around the world.
The Roots and Shoots website is chock-full of ideas for parents, educators and kids who want to participate in conservation projects.
Some of the activities include creating a backyard habitat; planting an urban garden; easy craft projects including making a pinecone bird feeder or constructing a frog hotel; digging a mini pond; backyard composting and assembling leaf and log piles.
National Geographic Society
Goodall worked with the National Geographic Society many times over the years and became their “Explorer in Residence” in 2000.
The society’s goals aligned with Goodall’s passions: protecting wildlife and conserving the world’s ecosystems.
In 2017, the society released a movie about her life’s work.
Two years later, the National Geographic Museum hosted the exhibit “Becoming Jane: The Evolution of Dr. Jane Goodall.”
The Center for Great Apes
Goodall was an honorary board director at The Center for Great Apes and frequently participated in fundraising for the sanctuary.
The center is a “retirement home” for chimpanzees and orangutans who have left the entertainment industry, or were rescued from the exotic pet trade and medical research.
The sanctuary is home to more than 70 great apes, who frolic in a lush Florida jungle outfitted with climbing structures, swinging vines and numerous toys and enrichment activities.
Saving all animals – including the humans
Above all, Goodall was a pragmatist.
She knew she couldn’t save the chimpanzees if the humans nearby were living in hopeless poverty.
And she believed that the world wouldn’t achieve big climate goals if populations were struggling to survive and feed their children. So she pioneered a conservation approach she called “Tacare,” that works with local populations to solve conservation problems, with community members always at the center of the work.
Goodall believed eliminating poverty through livable wages was a way to help the most vulnerable communities and – ultimately – save the planet.
She also encouraged people living in wealthy countries to try purchasing only ethically sourced goods, made by people paid a livable wage.
Vegetarianism
Goodall was a vegetarian from a young age, and in later years, she adopted a vegan diet.
She was vocal about the cruelty she felt animals faced due to factory farming.
She also worried about the fossil fuel pollution created by the meat industry, the destruction of forests to make way for methane-producing cattle farms, and the moral and health implications of eating meat.
Her institute published a cookbook called #eatmeatless inspired by her favorite recipes.
Guide Dogs for the Blind
When actress Betty White died, Goodall memorialized her on social media. Goodall had worked with White numerous times on animal welfare projects and found in her a kindred, animal-loving spirit.
Goodall encouraged others who loved White to support an animal charity in her honor. Goodall singled out White’s support of Guide Dogs for the Blind as a charity beloved by the star.
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