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  • Writer's pictureXiwen Yeoh

The Conservationist I Had Not Known - Dr. Jane Goodall

I had only heard of Dr. Jane Goodall’s name and that she works with chimpanzees, but nothing further than that. Knowing that she is legendary in the conservation field, I grabbed the giveaway opportunities given by KindMeal.my to attend a talk delivered by Dr. Jane on the topic An Inspiring Life. As I did not know much about her, her life story from a child to where she is now was surprising and eye-opening for me: she was willing to travel to Africa to study wildlife during the time when transportation and communication were very limited (no Google at that time definitely); she was the one who discovered that chimpanzees know how to use tools just like humans; she obtained a phD in the University of Cambridge without having a degree; she is now over 80 years old and travels 300 days a year to inspire more people to join conservation movements, all because of the compassion she has towards the animals, the people and the planet.

These are the summaries of my thoughts and what I learnt from Dr. Jane’s talk:

Passion needs to be nurtured

I always believe that children have the purest hearts of all human beings. We were amazed by all the happenings around us when we were young, being super curious towards how the world works, especially the Nature which has so many unique components in it: the morning glory that blooms in the morning but closes the petals at noon; the caterpillars which eventually morph into beautiful butterflies; the swallows which fly close to the ground before the rain is coming; the towering giraffes which are able to grab some leaves with their tongues high up in the branch… I remembered that I used to be mesmerized the wonder of Nature, wanting to be a zoologist in the future, reading lots of animal-related encyclopedia whenever I had the chance. However, reality hit me in the face when I reached the age to get proper education in the school. I was one of the top students in class and academic achievement was demanded by both school and family. Having dreams was unrealistic and a degree in the university was what we need to survive in the society when we grew up. Eventually, most of my time was devoted to school, tuition and co-curricular activities, so my passion towards animals was diminished from burning flames to warming soot, giving ways to more ‘serious’ stuff to do in life. Today I am already a degree student who is graduating soon, and I have grew up enough to be able to have my own opinions on what kind of life I want to have now and in the future. It’s never too late to seek the passion again and find my purpose in life.

Collaborating with local people in conservation

Conservation are not just carried out by experts who have years of academic backgrounds, this is something I realised not long ago. The most suitable candidates to be wildlife conservationists are the local people who have been living with wildlife generation upon generation. It is ridiculous if some scientists suddenly came to a native village and ordered the people not to hunt the animals for conservation purposes without knowing the culture of the people there and their relationship with the animals. I have heard of and seen collaborations of local people with wildlife conservationists which have been successful in Malaysia such as the river terrapin conservation with Turtle Conservation Society in Terengganu and the dolphin conservation with MareCet in Perak. Local people most probably understand the animal behaviours much better than we do since they are being close to them or even dependent on them for a living. If conservation work can be the bread and butter of the local communities, it will be a win-win situation for both the people and the wildlife. You don’t have to be highly educated to be a conservationist, you just need a heart.

Poverty is the reason of more destruction

This statement does not mean that the destruction of our environment is caused by the poor people of the country. Large scale destruction of the Nature is often carried out by big corporations in the name of development, such as the deforestation for oil palm plantation in Borneo that threatens the habitat of orang utan and the damming of river for hydroelectrical dam that turns fertile land into a place forever flooded and not habitable. The native people are often the victims who are chased out of their own land to give way to the big projects that can generate lots of money for the country. Since living standard is compromised, it totally makes sense that conservation will be at the least priority as they can’t even feed themselves. Thus every inch of land that they can get is used to cultivate crops, and every animal that they can hunt is used as food or sold to get money. The people are cornered and struggling to survive. If the welfare of native people is being taken care of, I believe that they can contribute in wildlife conservation more than we do as Nature is their home.

Humble-ness cannot be learnt in universities

Some academicians are the most arrogant people I have ever met. We do gain knowledge when studying in the university, but to gain life lessons, we need to go out and see the world with our own eyes. Despite of her great achievement, Dr. Jane was really humble when she talked about her journey in conservation. She has worked hard in the forest studying chimpanzees, and she came out to share the knowledge with the world, stressing the need of conservation work to be done. Her love towards the chimpanzees is so real that I cried when I watched the video of a chimpanzee giving Dr. Jane a hug before going off on her own towards the depth of the forest, her real home. The feeling of her speech is totally different from the climate change presentation we have done in classes, that we have in fact done nothing, but keep talking about how bad the global warming is going on by simply googling about the facts on internet. Hands-on experiences are the key to shape our view towards life, sitting in the university might earn us a scroll, but not an attitude that can benefit ourselves and also the world.

The talk was ended with a short video of Dr. Jane and her team releasing a chimpanzee back to the natural habitat. It was touching to see the chimpanzee giving Dr. Jane a hug before wandering off into the forest. Animals might not know how to speak our language, but love, has no boundary.

P/S: Thanks to KindMeal.my for sponsoring the tickets to this talk!

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