Honouring Her Legacy Through Roots & Shoots
On October 1, 2025, the world lost Dr. Jane Goodall — one of the most influential figures in the history of conservation, science, and youth empowerment. One year later, her absence is still felt everywhere her work touched: in forests and classrooms, in scientific journals and living rooms, and in the millions of young people who found in her the proof that one person, acting with compassion and persistence, can change the world.
The Global Icon
Dr. Jane taught us to see the world differently — as a tapestry of life that includes humans, wildlife, domesticated animals, and the wider natural world. She deepened our understanding of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, and spent decades working to protect them. She inspired millions to embrace hope not as a passive wish, but as something practiced through action. To carry that work forward, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which continues turning her vision into reality in communities around the world.
The Animal Lover
Before Dr. Jane arrived in what is now Gombe National Park, Tanzania, the world drew a hard line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Then she watched a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard strip the leaves from a twig and use it to fish termites from their mound — and that line began to dissolve. It was proof that chimpanzees, like humans, could make and use tools, form deep relationships, and live rich emotional lives. Dr. Jane spent the rest of her life asking the world to treat every animal as an individual, a principle the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots continues to put into practice today.
The Scientist
Dr. Jane’s contributions to science are hard to overstate. Her patient, close-observation approach to studying chimpanzee behaviour reshaped how researchers understood animal cognition and challenged the idea that humans were fundamentally different from other species. As she saw how human activity threatened both wildlife and the habitats it depends on, she brought together scientists, conservationists, and local communities to find solutions that worked for people and nature together. That model — science-based, community-led conservation — remains at the centre of the Jane Goodall Institute’s work today. Dr. Jane never set out to become a scientist, but the world is better for the curiosity she brought to the role, and for the generations of researchers her example continues to inspire.
The Mentor for Young People
When asked how she wanted to be remembered, Dr. Jane consistently gave the same answer: for her work inspiring young people. In 1991, that belief took a concrete shape when she founded Roots & Shoots — a global movement of young people leading local projects to help people, animals, and the environment. This year marks Roots & Shoots’ 35th anniversary: thirty-five years of young people around the world proving Dr. Jane’s point again and again, that every individual matters, every individual has a role to play, and every individual makes a difference.
The power of young people was Dr. Jane’s greatest source of hope. A year after her passing, that hope is still very much alive — in every Roots & Shoots group still showing up for people, animals, and the environment, and in every young person who decides that today is the day they’ll do something, however small, for the world around them.
Carrying Dr. Jane Goodall’s Legacy Forward
Dr. Jane spent her life turning #HopeIntoAction, and she asked all of us to do the same. As Roots & Shoots marks 35 years this year, there’s no better way to honour her memory than to become part of the movement she built.
If you’ve ever wanted to take that first step, today is a good day to start. Find your local Roots & Shoots group and join a project already underway, or start one of your own. However you choose to act — for animals, for people, or for the environment — you’ll be doing exactly what Dr. Jane asked of every one of us: making a difference, one day at a time.
Thank you, Jane. 