This pioneering researcher-turned-climate activist reshaped how we see the natural world, how humans understand their place on this earth, while inspiring millions in the process. We revisit our 2021 interview with Jane and the unique way she approached climate communications to find common ground and broach difficult topics. We also talk to Gill Einhorn, head of the World Economic Forum's 1t.org, to understand what Jane was like behind the scenes, and the unique way she earned trust and forged connections and how we can take her legacy forward.
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Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall Institute: What people need to understand is my meaning of hope, it's not sitting back, looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles and saying, “Oh, well, it'll be fine.” No, it's action.
Linda Lacina, Meet the Leader: Welcome to Meet the Leader, the podcast sharing how the world's top leaders are tackling the world’s toughest challenges. Today, we honour the life of Jane Goodall, the world-renowned primatologist and activist who gave voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless. She passed this week at 91.
Subscribe to Meet the Leader on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your favourite podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review us. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum and this is Meet the Leader.
Gill Einhorn, 1T.org, World Economic Forum: She's a scientist but she recognized that the scientific message wasn't enough, that you can't whack people over with a book of figures and numbers. What you need is to be able to convince them from a perspective of storytelling and heart-based connection.
Linda Lacina: Dr Jane Goodall, the world's best-known naturalist passed away this week on Wednesday. She was a pioneering researcher whose work living with chimps in the Gombe Forest didn't just reshape how we saw those animals but how humans understand their place on this earth.
Her work didn't just drive science forward; it opened her eyes to the urgent need to protect nature, becoming a key voice for the environment, inspiring millions across the decades. She’d go on to found organizations like the Youth Action Programme, Roots & Shoots and the Jane Goodall Institute, which raises money for projects like habitat conservation, poverty alleviation and animal sanctuaries.
She became a tireless public speaker, travelling 300 days a year, driving home her unique message of hope as a step towards action. She was a frequent guest on talk shows and podcasts and I was lucky enough to talk to her during the dredges of COVID in 2021. Her message was as relevant then as it is today and we'll get to that.
But first, we'll talk to Gill Einhorn. She's the head of our 1t.org initiative here at the World Economic Forum. Gill worked closely with Jane on our nature initiatives and she'll share what she's learned from Jane and how we should think about her legacy. Here's Gill.
Gill Einhorn: Jane was very excited when she discovered that we were launching a forest conservation and restoration initiative within the Forum. And she wanted to get involved because in 1960, she had gone to a nature reserve, Gombe, in Africa and had a very special experience with the chimpanzees there, where she recognized the connections between chimpanzees and humans in a way which I think humanity hadn't fully understood.
And her learning from that process in Gombe was the importance of the home of the chimpanzees, which are the trees. And so she was very keen to help ensure that we were supporting companies to socially and ecologically, responsibly, conserve and restore forests around the world.
Linda Lacina: Can you describe maybe the nature of some of the initiatives, how did that manifest itself at work?
Gill Einhorn: She came onto our platforms on a number of different occasions and she was a voice helping to explain to businesses the importance of investment and also sharing a very humane message of the connections between humans and our natural world.
And so I think she helped to deliver a message which we weren't perhaps able to cut through to leaders in the same way. And she has been doing that since 2020. So she's been working with us over the last five years in a variety of different fora to help to deliver those messages.
She also worked with us behind the scenes to help bring about collaborations that wouldn't otherwise have been possible. She worked in particular on Virunga in the DRC, where there were some challenges for Virunga in helping to support the gorillas. And she was actively involved in helping to make the case for conservation.
And a year after her engagement, President Tshisekedi of the DRC came to Davos and actually made an announcement to protect an area the size of France as a result of the importance of conservation, restoration and bio economies in the DRC. So, she's been both an ambassador for us on big stages but also working behind the scenes to help to support outcomes and impact on the ground.
Linda Lacina: What is it about her? What's that special quality you think that she had where she was able to get these messages across in a way that maybe other leaders couldn't?
Gill Einhorn: She speaks to the heart and she speaks through stories. And her storytelling capabilities are transformative. So, being in the room and listening to her speak, you could hear a pin drop in a plenary hall of hundreds of people because of the way in which she engaged. And even when she was delivering hard messages and some of her hard messages are difficult for humans to hear.
For example, one of her perspectives was that we have too many people on the planet. And that is perhaps a challenging message for some people to hear but she'd always deliver it with a smile, with joy, with a light heart and with stories that would lead people into a space of understanding, which perhaps they wouldn't have if they were just listening from a perspective.
Linda Lacina: Her, as a person in the room, what is she doing? How is she navigating that space? How is she engaging with people that's a little bit different? Can you talk a little about that?
Gill Einhorn: Jane as a child was very timid and she would always help to make space for the timid youth in the room. So her priority was always to meet with the youth whenever she engaged with us. And she'd always ask me to put extra time in for her to be able to stay in the rooms for the timid people to come up afterwards. Those who didn't feel comfortable asking questions in the room or even felt a little bit hesitant to go and approach her.
And I think that was a beautiful indication to me of someone very approachable, very keen to meet and share her light and also very thoughtful about those who she's engaging with.
Linda Lacina: And that approach, maybe with people who are a little bit shy and who maybe don't think that they're entitled to speak or to have a voice, how does that also help with people who have a platform, people who are empowered to act? How does it have a different effect on those people?
Gill Einhorn: Jane had a way of speaking to someone which personalized the conversation, took it away from the content and took it into a space of, I'm a human, you're a human. There are other beings on this planet. And what is our responsibility? She talked a lot about compassion. She talked about hope.
And so I think, irrespective of the audience she was engaging, whether it was the timid youth or a world leader, she brought us back to our humanity, which is why her message resonated so well.
Linda Lacina: How do you think that you approach maybe either messaging or an action, structuring maybe a particular solution or a discussion? How do you approach that differently since your engagements with Jane?
Gill Einhorn: I recognize the importance of emotion and the importance of cognitive and behavioural decision making. And in fact, this year we launched the Global Futures Council on the Human Science of Environmental Action, learning from Jane and from a few others that we've encountered through time at the Forum, of the importance of speaking to the heart, speaking through emotions and helping people have personal moments of transformation.
We've brought together the world's leading cognitive and behavioural scientists to crack the nut on how do we engage leaders on this journey towards greater environmental action.
Linda Lacina: With all the tributes that have been flooding in about her, is there anything that struck you or even surprised you?
Gill Einhorn: The number. And I think that that's an indication of just how many people she touched. She was always keen to have one-on-one engagements, always keen to make time to speak to audiences. She travelled 300 days of a year, which meant that she was always on the road and she made that commitment.
I think she was very clear that she wanted to leave a legacy. She wanted to support Roots & Shoots and she really wanted to touch and engage as many people as possible. I think a lot of us have been impacted by her light.
Linda Lacina: One of the things that she talked to me about was that hope was basically a verb, that hope is an action. It doesn't mean that it's this sort of rose – she said, it's not a rose-coloured glass sort of thing but it is something where you can use it as the first step towards getting towards a brighter light.
In your mind, what is an action we can all take? What is a lesson that you would like people to be taking forward, given Jane's example?
Gill Einhorn: Just on the topic of hope, if anyone has the time, her Hopecast is a beautiful illustration of what she means by hope as a verb. And she interviews changemakers from around the world, conveying the message of hope through their stories. So that's one action you could take.
But I think she had said to us, action looks different for everyone. It's up to the decision that you make of what you want to change and just know that every individual has that capacity to make the change that they're looking to see in the world. It's just a question of you making that decision of what you're going to engage on and how. And that's an inspiring message for all of us to take forward, especially during these times.
Linda Lacina: How will we move forward without her?
Gill Einhorn: I was thinking about that last night. Well, we still have Mr H.
Mr H is her mascot and also her stuffed monkey. He has travelled with her for 65 different countries. So, Mr H is still with us. She received from someone and decided he would be her ambassador. He's constantly eating a banana and she puts him on the stage with her as she's speaking, so he's very much a part of the conversation.
What we can take is the spirit of the work that she's done and the reminder that every individual matters and those individuals aren't just human.
She's a scientist but she recognized that the scientific message wasn't enough. That you can't whack people over with a book of figures and numbers. What you need is to be able to convince them from a perspective of storytelling and heart-based connection. And I think she's a really good illustration of the kind of scientists that we need at this stage.
Often, people go into the scientific tradition to do the science but we also need people who can communicate those heartfelt messages. And I think Jane was a beautiful illustration of somebody who started in the science and ended up in the heart and the storytelling.
Linda Lacina: If there was any other detail that can help us understand what she meant to you personally – you worked with her, you know, you could tell us how you worked with her and what she meant to you.
Gill Einhorn: She drank a lot of whiskey and she would get to the end of a long day and she would say, “Gill, right now it's time for whiskey, come up to my room, we're gonna have a drink.”
And those who knew her would give her whiskey. So at the end of some of the meetings, she'd be like, I've got too much. Please, can you take that? Take some off my hands. That's a special memory for me because I think that was also her way to – that was her home and her grounding.
She wasn't based in any particular location for much of the year but that was a place that she returned to. And I think a stiff whiskey at the end of the day was just what she needed to be able to wake up with a spring in her step the next morning.
What she meant to me, I think she's an ambassador of hope. And what I observe on the agenda at the moment is quite a lot of negativity in the press, in the news, in decisions that are being made today. And I think we need more hope and we need more hope as a verb. We need more hope and action.
And so I think that's what will stick with me as I walk my journey. And as we all follow in her footsteps in one way, shape or form, as we make our decisions and commitments to change.
Linda Lacina: You said that you were talking about the whiskey and I got the sense from her that there was a little bit of – she was very grounded and there was also sort of a little mischief.
Gill Einhorn: There was a lot of mischief. She was mischievous and she was crafty as well. She would plan her agenda sometimes around people that she didn't want to see and towards people that she wanted to connect with.
She always brought fun into the room and I think having Mr H with her helped and especially young children, when they would see him and recognizing that they had stuffed toys and here was this older woman who also had a stuffed toy. So I think it also takes us back to our childhood selves.
And that's one thing that I observed in the last five years is Jane's progression towards more and more childish thinking and behaviour, which always brought a smile to people's faces.
Linda Lacina: And doesn't it also come down to prioritizing? Leaders have to prioritize. And so by making sure you have this little friend with you at all times, you know that there's always an open arm.
There's always an entry to a child saying, “Oh maybe you're for me.” In the same way that maybe working her schedule makes sure that she's spending her time in a way that she can make the biggest impact. So there's this even a little bit of mischief. It's crafty but it's also very effective, right?
Gill Einhorn: Absolutely and I think that's where she takes us back to our childhood selves and from that perspective, then delivers a message that resonates.
The other story which comes to mind is how Jane would take photographs. She had some tricks up her sleeve that would always make people laugh.
One of them was instead of smiling at the camera and saying cheese, she would ask them to smile at the cameras and say chimpanzee, which would get people laughing a lot more and so a lot of the pictures that you see of Jane have people in hysterical giggles rather than just smiles.
And then the other thing she would do, she was very keen to take pictures with people and when she took pictures with people, she wouldn't look into the camera. She would look at the person that she was taking the picture with.
And so we've got a few examples, one of Jane and Greta looking at each other; the one with Emmanuel de Merode and Jane. But she would always have that personal connection and she would say afterwards, you'll see that picture is much better than the ones when we look into the camera.
Linda Lacina: With no further ado, we'll hear from Jane herself from our October 21 recording of Meet the Leader. She'll take us back to a key moment when she saw she could make a difference: a conference in 1986 and a session on habitat laws that helped her evolve from researcher to activist. A moment that helped change her life.
Jane Goodall: I went to that conference, just a four-day conference, mainly to find out from the different field sites that by then existed, did chimp behaviour differ according to the environment? Was there something like culture and so on?
The answer to both, of course, is yes but we had a session on conservation – which was absolutely shattering and seeing that right across Africa, where chimps were studied, their numbers were decreasing, forests were disappearing – and then a session on conditions in some captive situations.
What I will never forget is videos of our closest relatives, highly social, highly intelligent beings, in five-foot-by-five-foot prisons in medical research with nothing.
And so I went to that conference. By that time, I had my PhD. I was in the best days of my life in the forests of Gombe learning about chimpanzees. But I left as an activist and there wasn't – people say it must have been a hard decision. I didn't make a decision. It was something that happened and I was changed.
I always call it my Damascus moment because if anyone remembers Paul on the road to Damascus and he starts off as a key persecutor of the early Christians and something happens on the road and he ends up as going out and preaching about Jesus all around. So it was like that. Something happened, click, no decision.
I didn't know what I had to do. I just knew I had do something.
Linda Lacina: I think so many people are in that same moment. They don't know what to do. They would like to do something for the environment. They know it's important but they don't know their first step. What is your advice to them?
Jane Goodall: I think my first step may be a little different to what I would advise people. I mean, first of all, I had to brace myself and actually go into medical research labs because I think you need to see firsthand. And secondly, I needed to see more about what was happening across Africa.
So I'm not advocating that for these people who don't know what to do. I did find a way of helping.
But for people who feel helpless, we keep being told, I hear it again and again, think globally but act locally. But if you think globally, you cannot help but be depressed. I mean, it's ghastly what's happening around the world. You've only got to think of the terrible effects of the hurricanes and typhoons and flooding and fires and heat waves are having. It's awful. So don't think globally but think. What can I do here in my community? What do I care about?
Well, I care about the homeless, nobody seems to care. Okay, get some people together who feel like you and see what you can do. Sit down and talk about it. Or if you're a kid, you can clear litter off the streets and prevent it going into the rivers and polluting the sea and killing animals. Or, you know, there's all kinds of different things that you can do locally.
And as you do them, you know that people just like you are doing the same sort of things around the world. And then – then you dare think globally. We'll do it together.
Linda Lacina: Your research took a very special brand of tenacity. And I think to tackle these big challenges for the environment, that also takes tenacity. Did you think that people lose sight of the fact that hope takes tenacity?
Jane Goodall: I think that people, once they think about it, understand that, of course, that's true. On the other hand, there are different kinds of hope. And I've been brought face-to-face with that recently because I've been talking with some political prisoners. There's nothing they can actively do except hope. And I think we have to try and encourage them.
So I asked one of them, you know, how do you cope with hope? And he said, well, it's really important not to rely too much on hope because then if your hope is disappointed and not released after all, then you sink into deep gloom. And different people have different things to cling on to.
And one of the things I found with some of these prisoners is to see a little bit of nature, seeing buds burst into blossom, birds flying past their little window. And that gives them hope somehow.
Linda Lacina: One of the approaches that you've had to mobilizing people and educating people has been to use storytelling, to connect with people on maybe a more compassionate level. Why is that so useful? Why is that such a helpful way to connect people?
Jane Goodall: Living through World War II taught me an awful lot about how to hang in there. Growing up during the war, there were all these stories coming out and stories about courage and heroism, stories about survival.
And I've watched people who tackle problems a little aggressively and they start arguing with the protagonist, let's say, somebody who thinks differently from them. And you can actually see the entire thing goes wrong because the person they're talking to and pointing a finger out and saying you've got to change, the eyes sort of cloud over and you can see that person thinking of a rebuttal to what he's been or she's been told.
And especially if it's a young person talking to a much older, especially dominant male, they don't want to be told what to do. So I found, find some point of contact between you and the person you're going to talk to. Find it on the internet or something. Maybe you both love dogs.
Spend one minute or two minute talking about that to build a tiny little bridge between you and your different ideas. And then you've got to reach the heart. It's no good arguing with the head. It's no good blinding someone with statistics. Change must come from within, I believe, real change.
When you may get lip service, you may get somebody saying, yes, of course you're right, of cause, blah, blah blah. But if you reach the heart and I can only reach the heart through telling stories; stories can change people.
I was in a taxi cab in London going to the airport for a two-week trip to the US. And the taxi driver knew who I was. And he started on at me: “Oh, you're just like my sister. I can't stand the likes of you. There's all these suffering people. All you care about animals. She goes to the animal shelter.” On and on.
So I sat forward. And I told him stories about the chimps, how we were helping people to rise out of poverty, how we're helping people find alternative jobs. I told them how we had sanctuaries for orphan chimps. Some of the stories about the chimps showing compassion and altruism to each other. Oh, he’s just grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. And we get to the airport. And neither of us had any change.
So in the end, he owed me what I think today would be the equivalent of $50 maybe. And I said, oh, donate it to your sister for her work, thinking he is going drinking off in the pub with his friend. I got back after two weeks. There was a letter from the sister. She said, first of all, thank you for your donation. But secondly, what did you do to my brother? She said he's been three times to help me. He's interested. He asks questions.
Linda Lacina: In your mind, how have you changed as a leader? You've honed some of these and learned the power of storytelling. But was there maybe a moment where you had maybe a different approach? Like how have you changed over the years?
Jane Goodall: Well, I don't think my approach has changed. I think all that's changed is that I have gained a little more self-confidence. I never set out to be what I've become. I just wanted to sit in the forest with chimps.
And when first people started coming up to me after the geographic articles, of course, saying, oh, could I have your autograph? I was kind of shocked. And thinking, why, what have I done? Why do they want my autograph? And when journalists came up, I tried to hide from them. I went through airports with dark glasses and my hair down, didn't seem to make any difference.
And so gradually, I came to accept that this was part of what I was trying to do, that I must use this notoriety or whatever you want to call it. And so started handing out little environmentally friendly – the size of a business card but it pulls out and it tells them about Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots.
And you could actually trace my progress around the US by where Roots & Shoots groups started up. What's changed is that I've got a little bit more self-confidence. And although I do not understand why me, somehow, I've been... I mean, it's almost like a mission. This is what I have to do.
And right now, the mission is to give people hope so that they don't give up. Because it's only if we all get together to tackle these problems that we can avert absolute disaster.
Linda Lacina: You've had many, many books out. This is the 22nd for adults. What's important now in this moment the message to get out to people?
Jane Goodall: We're living in pretty grim times. And that's covering the political scenario, social and of course, especially environmental.
When people lose hope, then they sink into apathy and do nothing. Or they might become violent and aggressive. But I think what people need to understand is my meaning of hope. It's not sitting back, looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles and saying... Oh, well, it'll be fine. I hope everything is going to be OK. No, it's action.
I just realized it's rather like being in a very dark tunnel with many obstacles that have to be climbed over. And it seems impossible to get to the other end where there's this little speck of light. That's hope. Hope won't happen unless we take action and we fight to get there.
And as you do more and more, you find you're more hopeful. And then you want to do even more. And as you do that, other people are inspired and they join in. And so it's an upward spiral.
Linda Lacina: You said that you've recently realized that hope can sometimes be like a dark tunnel with light at the end. Has your understanding of hope changed?
Jane Goodall: I think it was during the writing of this book that I really was forced by my co-author, my interrogator, Doug Abrams. He forced me to think things through that I hadn't really contemplated before. The answers were there, but I hadn't sought them.
And so it was, during the writing of that book that it became very clear to me that hope is only a useful tool if it's hope leading to action.
Linda Lacina: And how can hope lead to action?
Jane Goodall: If you have hope, then you will have the energy to tackle a problem, which before you had hope, wasn't any point-catching. Because if you don't think you can make a difference, why bother? Why don't we eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Well, a lot of people have that attitude. They don't care.
You know, I found that was true with many young people way back in the late 1980s, which is why I started our youth programme. Because they were saying, no, we don't have hope because you've compromised our future and there's nothing we can do about it. So we have compromised the future of the next generations. We've been stealing it for years but it's not too late to take action. There is something every person can do.
Linda Lacina: Is there a change that's happened recently that maybe you thought would never happen?
Jane Goodall: Well, I think some of the changes in corporate behaviour are really, really surprising. Shareholders are changing. And big companies deciding they're not going to deal with people who aren't environmentally responsible. Those are major changes and they might not have been predictable 10 years ago.
I think the number of people who've understood that protecting forests and planting trees is a way to go. And you know the World Economic Forum, with the UN, launched this trillion tree challenge and the work that we're doing with the Jane Goodall Institute and Trees for Jane is helping contribute to that initiative.
The most important, of course, is to protect the existing forests with all their rich biodiversity. And what's so important is for everyone to understand we are part of the natural world.
Even living in the middle of a city, we depend on the natural world for clean air and water and food and clothing, everything. But we depend on healthy ecosystems. And an ecosystem is made up of the different plant and animal species.
And I see it as like a living tapestry. And every time a species becomes extinct, because we are in the midst of a great extinction crisis, then it pulls a thread from the tapestry. And if enough threads are pulled, the tapestries will hang in tatters, the ecosystem will collapse.
So that's why biodiversity loss is so very important and protecting forests and banning intensive farming, which is killing the soil. Killing pollinators – actually harming people. We know what we need to do and we just have to have enough visionaries to come together and enough general public to understand to make it happen before it's too late.
Linda Lacina: Certain decisions need to be made and pushed forward. How can people avoid a standstill?
Jane Goodall: Well, the only way is that the leaders understand that what's happening in the world is ultimately going to be bad for them. Do they have children or grandchildren? Because if they do and the stories could reach their heart when they think of that darling little baby growing up and maybe finding too many ecosystems have collapsed and that child will be living in poverty.
So it's just a question of having the leaders understand the problems and feel compelled to get together and hold hands and present a united front. And I think if that happened, then more and more of the general public would want to help because let's face it, a lot of people have just given up on governments and a lot people hate big corporations.
But if they see that there really is a real desire and a reason for that desire in these top leaders, then I think they might be more hopeful about the future.
Linda Lacina: You'd mentioned that you're busier now than you were when you were travelling before COVID. What is your routine? What's a typical day for you?
Jane Goodall: Oh, my typical day is having not slept most of the night because there's so many problems. So I usually put on an audiobook, especially one I know that maybe I drift off to sleep. Wake up different times. Usually, I'm woken up by a little robin singing on my bird table outside my window up in the attic where I am now and have my half piece of toast and cup of coffee for breakfast.
Go through my emails that came in overnight, usually about 50, then get to work on either writing out lectures that I have to do on Zoom or something like that. And half an hour for lunch, sitting under my favourite tree in the garden, usually joined by robin and blackbird. And then back, more of the same thing, recording videos and so different videos.
I mean, just yesterday, I was doing one for a fundraising gala to raise funds for our donkey programmes. One was to help Indian elephants used in the temples and being really cruelly treated in some of the forests. One was about camels, the wild camel of North America. And then a couple were sort of more normal environmental ones. But going all around the world in one day is a little bit exhausting.
Then by the evening, when it gets dark, I go downstairs. Now it's autumn, we can light a little fire and I have supper with my sister and the rest of the family is usually doing other things, her daughter and two grown grandsons. And then come back up here and do a few last emails and things. Sometimes a phone call, Zoom call at 9, 9.30. That's a difficult day. It doesn't vary.
Oh, I do try and get a half-hour walk in the summer. I did it when I got downstairs about seven. Now it's too dark then. So I try and take an extra half hour at lunchtime because I mean I've got to keep fit somehow.
Linda Lacina: Of course. Is there a book that you recommend?
Jane Goodall: Well, I will get into enormous trouble from my co-author and my publisher and the people who've worked so hard to promote this book if I don't mention The Book of Hope. Also, I think that the people who've read it, they found hope. So, I'm not hesitant to recommend it. It was a lot, a lot ,a lot of work and soul searching.
There’s the major four reasons for hope. There's one section on each of those. And I think they're all important, as I've just said.
And then the final one is about my journey and the question that I was asked the other day, like, what's your next great adventure? It was before COVID. I had about 5/10,000 people in the audience. And I thought about this question, what's my next adventure?
If I'd been asked 20 years ago, I would have said, oh, I want to go into some wild forest that nobody's explored in Papua New Guinea or something like that. But that's not for me now, I'm 87. And so I said, dying. And there was a kind of gasp and titter around the room.
And I said, well, when you die, you know, there's either nothing, in which case, well, problem's over or there's something. I happen to believe there's something from things that have happened to me, which are explained in this book, for people who are interested. And if there is something beyond our physical death, then what adventure can be more exciting than finding out?
And afterwards, the woman came up to me and she said, Jane, I never liked to think about death but now I'm kind of curious, thank you. So it's not the actual death that's intimidating, it's the dying process. And we all know, we've known people who suffer for a long time because they're incapacitated, they're crippled, they have to be looked after. We don't want to live anymore.
On the other hand, you get some indomitable spirits who are in that position, who make the most of it and inspire others. I've known both.
Linda Lacina: Before we break, is there anything else that you think is really, really important that you'd like to drive home?
Jane Goodall: Well, I have the airwaves. I would like to say that it's really important that everybody understands that they, as an individual matter, that they make a difference, they make an impact on the planet every single day. And unless living in abject poverty, you can make conscious choices, ethical choices in how you live each day.
And even the very poor, they can make some choices too, like am I going to be kind or cruel to an injured animal that I find? Am I going to smile and reach out to a sick person in my community? So we can all make some decisions to lead a more ethical life, a more environmentally sustainable life. I want everybody to know that. They matter.
And they may think I'm just one person, what I do can't make a difference. No, if it was just one person, it wouldn't. But the cumulative effect of millions, hopefully billions of people making conscious ethical choices, will move us towards a better world.
Linda Lacina: That was Jane Goodall. To learn more about her legacy, we'll have links in the show notes, as well as to her Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation and how you can help drive her mission forward.
Find a transcript of this episode, as well transcripts from my colleague's podcast, Radio Davos, on wef.ch/podcasts. This episode of Meet the Leader was produced and presented by me with Gareth Nolan, driving studio production. That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum.