In an ideal world human beings would “live in harmony with nature”

PALMA
THE ideal world is a place inhabited by human beings in accord with existing resources, the leading British primatologist and environmental campaigner, Jane Goodall, said in Palma yesterday.

In this ideal world, human beings will stop feeling “pressured by the big companies” and would live “in harmony with nature”, said Goodall during the start of a two-day trip to the island.

Goodall first became famous worldwide for her research into the behaviour of chimpanzees in the 1960s.
She first ventured into the jungle at Gombe in Tanzania at the age of 26 and soon revolutionised primatology with her observations into the chimpanzees' conduct relating to warfare, tool making, reconciliation and social relations.

During that time, she discovered that these primates had developed certain intellectual and cognitive capacities similar to human beings.
Goodall says she would change nothing about her time in the jungle, even the “difficult moments”.
Goodall now devotes much of her time to campaigning on behalf of conservation projects.
She said her dream would be a planet in which “children were permitted to be children and enjoy themselves” and in which “we learn to respect everyone that lives in the world”.

Goodall, who gave a press conference about conserving biodiversity yesterday morning and participated in a benefit event in Es Baluard last night, said that uncontrolled population growth and poverty was a “terrible cocktail” for the environment. The scientist, who spent more than 40 years studying wild chimpanzees, said that the “principal threat” to species that live in the jungles of Africa and other continents was the mining and logging industries, as well as the illegal animal trade.

Goodall said that many of the companies that exploited the natural resources of the jungle were of Chinese origin, owing in part to the fact that this country is “enormous” and experienced “very rapid economic growth”.

She added, however, that “it did not mean that China was a worse country because we (Europeans) have done the same” in the past.
Goodall has insisted on the necessity of working with local communities and the governments of different countries to avoid “very negative consequences” in the future in a “beautiful planet that deserves to be looked after and handed on as a legacy to our children”.

In 1977, she founded the Goodall Institute (IJG) for research and conservation. There are now more than 20 branches throughout the world.
She said yesterday that nature was “a great orchestra” that is formed by numerous instruments and every single one is necessary.