That is it from me. James will be here at the top of the hour. Now on bbc news, its time for hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. I am stephen sackur. My guest today has made a unique contribution to our understanding of humankinds closest relatives, the primates. In particular, the chimpanzee. Jane goodall was in her 20s when she began her meticulous observation of chimpanzee behaviour in africa. Now, she is in her mid 80s, a world famous she is in her mid 80s, a world famous conservation activist. So what hope is there for saving the primates and so many other species from mass extinction . Jane goodall, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to hardtalk. It is a pleasure having you on the programme, and it strikes me this year is a rather remarkable anniversary for you. It is 60 years from the beginning of your work and what we now call tanzania, your observation of the chimpanzees in the forest. When you consider the 60 year span of the forest. When you consider the 60 yearspan of time, the forest. When you consider the 60 year span of time, what is your overriding feeling when you reflect on what has happened in those six decades . Well, the world has changed, there is no question. It has changed rather dramatically. When i first arrived at the National Park, it was part of the great equatorial forest belt that stretched from the western parts of east africa right across to the west african coast, and when i flew over combi National Park, which is very small in 1990, i was shocked to see a tiny island of forest and it was surrounded by completely bare hills, more People Living there in the land could support, buying food from elsewhere. Chimpa nzees could support, buying food from elsewhere. Chimpanzees now isolated from other women in chimpanzee groups in the area, and right across africa, chimpanzee numbers have dropped, forests have disappeared, there is the live animal trade, mothers shot to sell babies. The bush meat trade, because in some african countries, people think chimp meat is a delicacy. So that is also adding to the depletion of chimpanzee numbers right across africa. Even in that answer, you have given us such a sense of the enormous environmental pressures that the chimpanzees have been under over those 60 years. I want to go through this from the beginning, i wa nt to through this from the beginning, i want to start by having you take us back to 1960 two the Young Jane Goodall in her 20s with no real scientific academic training, but certainly amazing gifts for natural observation. How unusual was it for you to be given the role, the responsibility of going out into the forest and undertaking the scientific observation . Well, it was absolutely unique. You are right. I had no scientific training at all. I just did biology in school. I left school at 18, we didnt have money for a university or a college, and so when i arrived in africa, it was simply because from the age of ten i had dreams of going to live with wild animals in africa and write books about them. And i was fortu nate to books about them. And i was fortunate to meet with a famous palaeontologist, and i think he was really impressed by how much i knew about african animals from the reading i had done. When i grew up, there was no tv so it was reading. And so he offered me a job as his assistant, really, and then he became i suppose more impressed because he saw that i really, really had this thing about being with animals and watching them and could cope with the bush stop and so he gave me this extraordinary opportunity. I mean, iwould have studied any animal and it was chimpanzees. And interestingly, the professor encouraged you to run with his idea that meticulous observation of the chimpanzees might reveal new connections between their behaviours and human behaviours. Is that something that when you went out into the forest, you are actively looking for . Well, i wasnt looking for it, but he sent me because he believed, as everybody does now, that he was ahead of his time. He believed there was a common ancestor, chimp luck, humanlike, apelike, humanlike rather about 6 million years ago, and because he was searching for the fossilised remains of our earliest human a ncestors, remains of our earliest human ancestors, he felt that if jane sees behaviour in chimpanzees today that is similaror behaviour in chimpanzees today that is similar or may be the same as behaviour in humans today, may be that behaviour was also present in the common ancestor, brought with us in ourtwo the common ancestor, brought with us in our two separate evolutionary pathways, and he felt that would give him, for the first time, some way of imagining how those early a ncestors way of imagining how those early ancestors might have behaved. You adopted techniques, which i think we can now say were groundbreaking. To immerse yourself in the life of the chimp troupe, i dont know that it actually the right were, by the group of chimpanzees. You were with them every day, you encourage them to get very confident in your presence and you didnt observe them with sort of scientific detachment and give them numbers as so many scientists have done in the past. You engaged with them and related to them ina you engaged with them and related to them in a much more intimate way. You engaged with them and related to them in a much more intimate waylj certainly did. I observed them. It took a long time before they trusted me enough for me to really get close, bus, you know, that is how i have studied the animals around my home in bournemouth all my life stop soi home in bournemouth all my life stop so i knew given time that they would come to accept me. Did i have time . We only had money for six months, and they kept running away every time they saw me. Then finally one of them, Ina Tim David greybeard, and he accepted me better than the others and i saw him using and making tools for fish for termites. That was the turning point. That was when lecky was able to bring in the National Geographic and send a photographer and filmmaker. And so gradually i was able to get to know the chimpanzees as individuals. Each with their own personality. I could see their minds working to solve simple problems. And i could witness their emotions, like happiness, sadness, fear, grief. And all of this when i was sent by lecky to Cambridge University to do a phd in logy. Cambridge university to do a phd in mythology. This is when the professor told me i had done everything wrong like ethnology. Yes, naming the gems is scientific andi yes, naming the gems is scientific and i shouldnt talk about them having personalities, minds or emotions because those, they said, we re emotions because those, they said, were unique to humans. But even though i was nervous, never having been to college, i had been taught bya been to college, i had been taught by a wonderful teacher as a child that this wasnt true, that in this respect, these professors were wrong. And that teacher is right here behind me, i hope you can see him, and it is my dog rusty. You cannot spend meaningful time with any animal, a dog, a rat, a pig, hm chimpanzee, and not know that we are not the only meanings on the planet with personalities, minds and emotions. And i was also told you mustnt have empathy with your subject stop scientific observations should be sort of remote and cold and objective. But this is absolute rubbish, because only when you have empathy you see something you dont understand, and you just have this feeling as to why it is happening. So then you can stand back as a scientist, which is what cambridge told me, and check whether your intuition is right or wrong. Jane, as you say, national geo graphic we re very as you say, national geo graphic were very eager to send first, a photographer, and then a full camera crew to record what you were doing in the forest, and many films have been made over the years using material from that period, but there was some Archive Footage that wasnt seen very was some Archive Footage that wasnt seen very many years and it has all been pulled together now in an extraordinary film. Wejust been pulled together now in an extraordinary film. We just want to play a little clip from the archive, showing you increasingly winning the confidence of the chimpanzees in the forest. Lets have a look right now. Gradually, they allowed me to get closer and closer. It was absolutely thrilling. To have the chimpanzees so close. What strikes me from that clip, jane goodall, is that there will was a degree of real intervention in what you were doing. You were sort of laying bananas out, increasingly close to yourself so you could get closer and closer to these creatures. Some may look at that and say that you were there therefore interfering in a way that made their behaviour is not entirely spontaneous and natural. Some have talked about the every aggression you encourage as i talked about the every aggression you encourage as i ended up fighting for bananas. Did you, at the time, worry about the degree of interference . No, because there was no protocols. There were one or two field studies of primates, they all had feeding stations, or almost all of them did, and i wasnt. What i was interested in right from the beginning was the behaviour of the individual. That was also discouraged by the science. Scientists. But all the chimpanzees i was learning about how the same kind of situation, so i wasnt so interested about what they actually might have done if i wasnt there. Admittedly, did increase the and when i realise that, we stopped that feeling. The key finding, and there we re feeling. The key finding, and there were many, and we will talk about several of them, but the key finding that still resonates through the world of primatology and animal behavioural science today was your observation, and it comes back to i think david greybeard, the name you gave to one of the chimps, his use ofa gave to one of the chimps, his use of a stick as a tool to capture termites and then of course to eat them, and it wasntjust the use of this tool, it was the shaping and modelling of the tool to make it as effective as possible as a collector of termites. When you observed this tool behaviour, did immediately strike you that this was something ofa strike you that this was something of a breakthrough . Well, i knew it was a breakthrough. I knew that we we re was a breakthrough. I knew that we were supposed to be the only tool using, tool making animal on the planet, and it was professor s hill who defined us as man, the toolmaker. And so i knew it was a breakthrough as far as science was concerned. I knew that this was a breakthrough, and it really did change the whole course of the events, because david was carefully selecting grass stones, pushing them down into the termite hole, pulling them out slowly, eating off the termites, but he was also reaching out and picking a leafy twig, and to use that, he had to carefully strip the leaves. That was the toolmaking. And of course now we know they make tools in other ways as well. But it was very exciting. However, if the scientists had bothered to go into the field and talk to, for example, the field and talk to, for example, the indigenous People Living in the forest in congo, they would have told them, of course chimpanzees use tools. We have seen it. Well, i sincerely. Well, iactually believe because chimpanzees are so like us biologically, we share 98. 6 of the composition of dna and many other similarities and composition, blood, immune system, anatomy of the brain and so on, along with hugos film of chimpanzee behaviour, the similarity and non verbal communication, kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting one another on the back, then it sort of forced science out of that very reductionist way of thinking about our relationship with animals. I want to talk for a moment, not about chimpanzee behaviour but human behaviour. As a young woman you were a pioneer in working in this field in the early 1960s. Looking back at some of the reporting of the time, the associated press, for example, began a report on what you were doing in tanganyika with these words a willowy blonde with more time for monkeys than men told today how she spent 15 months in the jungle to study the habits of apes. There is no way they would have written about a male scientist at that. It did not offer me back then. Ijust wanted to get on and study the chimpanzees. And when there were report that i was famous only because of my legs, it was a different world and women did not feel less threatened than as they do today because feminism, you know, had not begun full this was just after world war ii full. My feeling at the time was that if my legs have helped me get onto the cover of the geographic, thank you, legs, because that provided me the opportunity to go on studying chimpanzees which is what i want to do. So what today would not be acceptable. Lets reflect on where we are today. You referred to it early in the interview about the degree of pressure that there is on the communities of chimpanzees and so many other wild animals particularly in south africa right now stop suggestions are that there are around 170,000 chimpanzees in the wild today the turn of the 20th century there is believe there were more than1 century there is believe there were more than 1 million. Century there is believe there were more than1 million. Do century there is believe there were more than 1 million. Do you think we humans have completely failed chimpanzees and so many other species . We are certainly failing them but in the same way we are failing our own future generations of human beings. For a long time we have been stealing the future of our children, our grandchildren and we are still stealing it today. We have terribly harmed this planet. This has led to the Climate Crisis which, if we do not get act together around the world and do something about it soon, will lead to the end of life on this planet as we know it and that includes asked. It is our disrespect of nature, of the Natural World and animals that has led to this pandemic, this covid 19 pandemic and it has led to climate change. And so this is why i left gumby, the best days of my life were there, i was in the rainforest learning about the interconnection of all living things, how eat species has a role to play in this web of life we call biodiversity. In learning as i travelled around the world raising awareness of what was happening in africa about what were doing to the planet and we wont go into that now but i think probably everybody listening knows what were doing to the planet. But it is important to ask you this simple question. Thinking of tanzania and gone beware you did so much work, what would you say to those local people who would say well, jane, her work is amazing but dont forget, jane goodall is a white woman with a lot of privilege, coming into our communities are now telling us that we must not be forest, we must not seek out bush meat which we can sell in the marketplace to feed our families and keep ourfamilies alive, she is lecturing us in a way that does not reflect the hardships and reality of our daily lives and therefore, her message about conservation is not one that we can easily accept. What i would say to thatis easily accept. What i would say to that is that is never what i did. And what i realised in 1986, that the forest across africa were going and chimpanzees were decreasing in number along with other animals, the first thing i felt was important was to find out more about it. So i scraped together a bit of money and visited i think six range countries where chimpanzees lived, where they we re where chimpanzees lived, where they were being studied by then. And what i learned about was, yes, the plight of the chimps but also the plight of so many african People Living in and around chimpanzee habitat and it came toa around chimpanzee habitat and it came to a head when i flew over the tiny gombi National Park which, as i said, by 1990 it was a small island of forest surrounded by fair hills. People struggling to survive, too poor to buy food from elsewhere and thatis poor to buy food from elsewhere and that is when it hit me. If we do not do something to help these people find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we cannot even try to save the chimpanzees. And so the Jane Goodall Institute began a Community BasedConservation Programme and it was holistic and it was not a group of arrogant white people marching into the villages and telling people that you have messed things up and this is what we will do to make it better. It was a small group, seven i think, local tanzanians, better. It was a small group, seven ithink, local tanzanians, they better. It was a small group, seven i think, local tanzanians, they did not even have a degree so they were not even have a degree so they were not threatening, and they were hand picked, they went into the villages and sat down with the people and asked them, what do you think we could do to help you . And thatis think we could do to help you . And that is where we began. Better education for the children, restoring fertility for the overused land to grow more food, and better healthcare. So we started in that way with just 12 villages and a tiny grant from the european union. Way with just 12 villages and a tiny grant from the european unionlj looked at the amount of work that your institute has done along with other organisations you set up such as the roots and shoots organisation focused on young people in communities. You have done extraordinary work but it seems the more you have turned from research to activism, and you travel all over the world with this message, the more uphill the struggle seems to be. Are you feeling, in your ninth decade, very bleak about where we are . First of all, this expression fling that make think globally act locally, if you think locally you become depressed and you cannot help that today. But if you think what cani that today. But if you think what can i do as an individual, right here in my own community . This is the premise behind our roots and shoots programme that i began in 1991 with 12 High School Students in tanzania. And it a sickly was telling them that what they did each day would make a difference. And it was basically telling them. So it is now in 65 countries, we have kindergarten members, University Members and everything in between. That is my hope for the future. Because everywhere i was going when i could travel, i have not been able to travel because of this silly pandemic, but i was young and there we re pandemic, but i was young and there were students coming up. The jane, let us tell you what we have been doing to make this a better world. So enthusiastic. Over your Left Shoulder i see beautiful pictures of some of the chimpanzees who are part of your studies. Do you think chimpanzees have a future . There are people who talk about the real possibility of the extinction of wild chimpanzees. Well, it is what i am going to fight for for the rest of my life. I dont know how long that is. But we have got some large areas and because of this programme that i told you about, i talked about the bare hills around gombi fly over it today and you will not see bare hills stop the forest have been allowed to come back and the villages have become partners in concert that may conservation and they understand that protecting the environment is notjust they understand that protecting the environment is not just for wildlife, it is their own future. They need the forest for clean air and clean water, to regulate rainfall and climate stop that programme is rainfall and climate stop that programme is now rainfall and climate stop that programme is now in six other african countries wherej gi is studying chimpanzees. There are large areas of forest in the villages are beginning to leave corridors where the chimpanzees can move from one community to another, which they must do to avoid inbreeding. So i have great hope that we do not have long to do it and seeking funding. We were going to use the 60th anniversary for galas and to raise money for that is all now put on hold because of covid 19. But nevertheless, i do have hope that the young people, because of this group coming up now living with nature and harmony, because of the resilience of nature and what i call the indomitable human spirit, the people who tackle what seems impossible and will not give up and very often succeed. That isa give up and very often succeed. That is a wonderful and uplifting node upon which to end. Jane goodall, i think you very much indeed for being with me on hardtalk. Thank you as well. A stimulating conversation. Thank you. Despite the chilly start of sunday morning, temperatures reached 25 celsius in the south east. It was a warmer day for most with an abundance of sunshine and over the next few days we are introducing more cloud and it will therefore feel cooler and there will be some rain, that has been moving in through sunday evening and overnight on these set of weather fronts, a fair breeze as well blowing in the north. So those weather fronts will introduce more cloud so it wont be as chilly first thing this morning, little bit of mistiness, in the south here we hold onto sunshine, onto sunshine, certainly through the morning and the cloud thickens in the afternoon. That weather front slips south and we will see some clearance further north in terms of brighter drier weather but, still, with some heavy showers around particularly in the north west of scotland, lengthy sunny spells further and east and still quite warm. Brightness for Northern Ireland but you can see that cloud filtering southwards although the rain holding off on the south east most likely until late afternoon, early evening. There could be a few heavy bursts across the welsh mountains before it slowly clears away through monday night and the start of tuesday. Behind it, a northerly breeze. Plenty of showers and the next weather system in the wings. Again, for most of us it is reasonably mild. Just an awful lot of cloud as we see through the day ahead, sitting on the hills, giving misty murky weather. As i say, that weather system is clearing away and we have High Pressure starting to build into those weather fronts. As they come in during the course of tuesday, they will gradually weaken. Still quite a peppering of showers in the north and the cloud and rain just dragging its heels in the south first thing and then the rain comes into Northern Ireland before the end of play but, for many, a dryish day with just a few showers around, feeling a bit cooler because we have a north westerly breeze. As i say then, that weather system comes into the ridge of High Pressure so it will be a weakening feature by the time we reach wednesday under the influence of High Pressure so not a lot of rain left on it. But lots of cloud. And it will still have a lot of cloud with it on thursday before the High Pressure starts to take hold later in the week. Quite a cloudy day for most on wednesday with drizzly rain around, drying up gradually towards the end of the week and becoming very warm, particularly in the south, as we go into the weekend. One to watch. Bye bye. This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Im james reynolds. 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