Remembering Dr Jane Goodall - Lessons Taught

For those unable to access this profoundly beautiful final television interview with Jane Goodall, I have described it here to bring her message and to have it kept safe within this precious library of heroes and stories of work being done, kept known through World Pulse.

Certain people live their lives with such grace, such integrity, such wisdom, care and love - for humanity, for animals, for our planet. Such a woman was Jane Goodall. Born in 1934 she died recently on October 1, 2025 at the age of 93. Many might not be aware that she had long been part of World Pulse as an esteemed member of our Global Voice Council. This story is a reflection on her life, containing her very recent messages to us all, beautifully created and broadcast through a film made in her honour “Famous Last Words - Dr Jane Goodall” shown on the Netflix television channel, documented not long before she died.

It opened with a respectful and moving recognition that this interview would be a chance for us to know what she wanted us to know, through what would be some of her last words to us as a global community. A chance for us to understand more of what she had learned and what messages of importance she wanted to be sure would be kept known, made available to us all and carried forward.

She was introduced as a scientist, a conservationist and an educator who believed that we are all interconnected.

This interview was described as one that would live on after she died, for people to know more about her. With a humour threaded throughout the interview she responded that there would be no repercussions to her speaking openly as she would be gone, clapping her hands and laughing, saying that one or two people might be happy she was gone. When the interviewer mentioned that so many believe that she is one of the most beloved people in the world, she replied that she had no idea, that this remained a mystery to her, then describing how when people see what another can make happen they can then believe what is possible for them to do as well and how she did what she did, because as people we get inspired by each other for what we can do.

The impact of her work was described, work that showed that chimpanzees were making and using tools and that they had distinctive personalities and relationships with each other. When asked how knowing through the depth and unique discoveries of her work we have learned how closely related chimpanzees are to humans, she replied simply that she just knew that this was what she was here to do. She described being laughed at, but how supported she felt in particular by her mother, the importance of parents supporting their child, like her mother upon discovering that young Jane had taken earthworms into her bed, giving her the suggestion that perhaps she had done this to discover how they could move without legs. How her mother in hearing her dreams of what Jane wanted to do, simply advised her that she would have to work very hard. She credited her mother as amazing, wise and supportive of women and girls, going beyond the limitations taught and imposed. She described wanting to go to Africa and thinking that in the popular story of Tarzan and Jane, that Jane in that story was a wimp, and that she should be the Jane in place of that Jane.

She stressed the importance of a parent not crushing curiosity in a child, that in nature there is always something to watch, how tiny insects can work together to get a job done, how a tiny female insect took off to work on her own when a male insect was treating her disrespectfully and how a male sparrow made a point of picking up a crumb to feed a female sparrow that he clearly loved.

She described being moved by knowing that so many people who have never met her love her, and seeing this as people holding the same values. She also named some world leaders who she wished off the planet, daring to name some publicly in this interview. She pointed to Alpha chimpanzees falling into two categories: Some aggressive, some who used their brains to involve the community to find solutions.

She described how we can learn from chimpanzees, as our own DNA as humans matches chimpanzees 98.7 percent and with our behaviours almost identical. She studied the fear that can arise when we meet people from another community, how demonstrations can turn aggressive, a fight for dominance - and the need to teach non dominance. She held as one example her memory of Nazi Germany. She embraced her own obstinacy, recognizing moments of depression and our need to not give up and let those creating violence win, to see violence and war as what we need to end, in this fight for our planet and its people and the need to save Mother Nature. She advised us of the need to stay calm, and that she found this in the rainforest.

She pointed to how destiny, luck and determination can open the right paths, how there is a path we should take but that we have free will to make the choice, and how the mix of destiny, luck and determination take part in our journeys. She spoke about our having free will and at the same time each of us living out our destiny, touching on a spiritual power that we carry that takes many different forms for many people, a spiritual power that she described that helps us and that she has felt helped her, a spiritual power that she recognizes many believe is not real, describing it as the power we can feel holding hands in a circle, asking for what we want to see happen. She made it clear that she did not know, that she had no answer, that she was just explaining what she has experienced.

She described how she had been warned not to travel to a spot in Tanzania where she and her mother had established a medical clinic, her mother making some amazing cures and the lead medicine man asking for the animals not to hurt them, pointing to that there is so much more to discover, if we are to save this planet.

When asked what she believes happens when we die, she readily admitted that she had no answer, that she believes that we have a path that we are here to take but that we have free will in what we do with our lives. It was beautiful to hear from her that she simply believes that in her life she has taken the right turn. That by choosing this mission for her life, that it was this great spiritual entity that offered it, a spirit that helped her often.

She spoke about how many religions recognize about “old souls”, how she believes that an old soul can be back in different forms and how we acquire knowledge and wisdom as we live.

When asked who she hoped to meet when she died, she named some of her favourite Chimps and her dog Rusty, and “Of course my mum”, explaining that she had experienced a different kind of love from her mother, how the love we feel for different people in our lives is all different.

She spoke candidly about each of her two husbands, how jealous they each were about her work and her success in her career, despite her having married them in love.

She described herself as somebody sent to this world to try to give people hope in dark times, to bring hope so that we don’t fall into apathy and do nothing. She brought this question: “How do we bring children into this dark world we have created and let them be surrounded by people who have given up?”.

She called on us that even if we feel this is the end of humanity as we know it, to fight to the very end and to let the children know that there is hope. She spoke of knowing at 10 years old what she wanted to do and that now so close to her death she was ready to hand over to others who have this same spirit.

She described being ready to stop, despite this swing politically to the right which is harming the environment so terribly, naming this time as the “sixth great extinction”, insisting “that action must be now”, reminding us that we have the tools but that we must have the will to make change, challenging some of the politicians and corrupt corporations.

She described the critical importance that methods of creating change not be aggressive - that aggression never works. That we must listen to people who disagree, that maybe there is something to learn. She advised us that if differences are still there, that we need to reach each others’ hearts, and that it is through stories that we can reach the heart. To trust that “big mission, little actions” works.

Toward the end of the interview she was brought to face the camera and was handed the microphone as her host left the stage for her to give her closing message to us all. She described that she had been looking back over her life as if she was looking back at the world she has left behind, wondering what message she wanted to leave. Her answer to herself and to all of us watching this final film was that she wanted to make sure that we all understand that each and every one of us has a role to play. That we may not know it, that we may not find it - but that life matters matter, that we are here for a reason, and that she just hopes that that reason will become apparent as we live through our lives. She said that she wanted us to know that whether or not we find that role that we’re supposed to play, our lives do matter. And that every single day we live, that we make a difference in the world and we get to choose the difference that we make.

She wanted us to understand that we are part of the natural world and that even today there still is hope. She called for us to not lose hope. She warned us that if we lose hope, we become apathetic and do nothing and that if we want to save what is still beautiful in this world, if we want to save the planet for the future generations, our grandchildren, their grandchildren, then we need to think about the actions that we take each day because multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change. Her call to us all was that she just hoped that we understand that this life on planet earth isn't the end. That she believed, and in her final words to us all, that we know that there is life beyond death and that consciousness survives. She reminded us that she would not be able to tell us secrets from where she would soon be, secrets she described as not hers to share. That she could not describe to us what we will find when we leave planet Earth, but that she wanted us to know that our life on planet Earth will make some difference in the kind of life that we find after we die. The most important last thought that she wanted us to think about was the fact that when we are on planet Earth we are part of Mother Nature. She reminded us that we depend on Mother Nature for clean air, for water, for food, for clothing, for everything, and that as we destroy one ecosystem after another, as we create worse climate change, worse loss of diversity, we have to do everything in our power to make the world a better place for the children alive today and for those that will follow. She reminded us that we have it in our power to make a difference. She asked us to not give up. She encouraged us that there is a future for us and to do our best while we are still here. She closed with these profound final words, “…this beautiful planet Earth that I look down upon from where I am now. God bless you all”.

Original Film: Netflix Special: Famous Last Words Dr. Jane GoodallExecutive Producers Brad Falchak, Mikkel Bondesen, David Goldberg