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Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help.

Jane Goodall

Science

The story behind the card

Goodall (1934–2025) often completed the sequence with a third line: only if we help shall all be saved. The idea grew out of her years at Gombe in Tanzania, where she came to know individual chimpanzees by name, character and family. When their numbers fell through forest loss, the bushmeat trade (hunting wild animals for meat to sell) and the capture of infants as pets, she felt it as the loss of individuals she knew, not as a statistic. The same thinking shaped Roots & Shoots, the youth programme she started in Tanzania in 1991, in which young people learn about a local problem and then act on it.

Türkçe oku
Ancak anlarsak önemseriz. Ancak önemsersek yardım ederiz.
Jane Goodall

Goodall (1934–2025) bu sıralamayı çoğu zaman üçüncü bir cümleyle tamamlardı: Ancak yardım edersek hepsi kurtulur. Düşünce, onun Tanzanya'daki Gombe'de geçen yıllarından doğdu. Goodall orada şempanzeleri tek tek, adlarıyla, huylarıyla, aileleriyle tanıdı. Ormanların yok olması, satmak için yaban hayvanı avlanması ve yavruların evcil hayvan olarak yakalanması yüzünden sayıları azaldığında bu, onun için bir istatistik değil, tanıdığı canlıların kaybıydı. 1991'de Tanzanya'da başlattığı gençlik programı Roots & Shoots da aynı fikre dayanır: Gençler önce yakın çevrelerindeki bir sorunu öğrenir, sonra onu çözmek için harekete geçer.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Jane Goodall
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