In a few weeks, an international delegation will be brought together in the very heart of England. Amid the grandeur of Windsor Castle, renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr Jane Goodall will host the third annual Roots & Shoots international leadership event. In the words of Dr Goodall, the aim of the event is to come up with “innovative ideas for making this world a better place”.
Many will be familiar with Goodall’s pioneering work with the wild chimpanzees of Gombe in Tanzania, which started in the 1960s. She first described tool use and hunting in non-human primates, both of which caused a stir at the time. However, as Jane saw the effects of deforestation and the plight of local refugees, it became clear that more needed to be done. “As I was travelling, I met so many young people who had lost hope, were apathetic, depressed or angry. They said, ‘You have compromised our future and there is nothing we can do about it.’”
It was from this experience that Jane developed Roots & Shoots, a small campaign to empower young people to positively change the world around them, through projects focusing on people, species and the environment. It started in 1991 with 12 high-school students from nine different schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attending her house to discuss the problems around them.
Twenty five years later, Roots & Shoots projects are running in 100 countries, with impressive and surprising names among that list: in addition to the 2,000 groups in mainland China and their strong presence in the United Arab Emirates, there are several groups in Iran and even two groups in North Korea.
In the UK, more than 2 million young people, from school to university, have been involved with such programmes. It’s hard not to be awed by the breadth and scale of the projects’ success: from beach cleans in the UK and tree planting across South America to species protection across Asia, Roots & Shoots is a real force.
Every group makes its mark, but there is one that sticks out. The first group to be set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo wanted to reforest a sacred hill. The group leader had to get permission from the resident militia in Goma, a very volatile area that has seen the most awful ravages of war and the very worst that humanity can do.
The militia commander agreed, but said he would have to send soldiers with them. Some 15 children, with saplings donated by the forestry department, and little shovels, set off for the hill, accompanied by four soldiers with AK47s. It was a much harder task than they had expected and they were unable to dig. One small child began crying. Within 20 minutes, one soldier leaned his gun against a tree and went to help her. Within 30 minutes, all four soldiers had laid aside their weapons to help the children.
In today’s geopolitical climate, we talk less about the global community and more about international threats. It is easy to think that the world is becoming a hostile place, where we each prioritise our needs at the expense of the wellbeing of the wider world. Uniting different people with a sense of compassion rather than dividing them through fear, the work of Jane Goodall and Roots & Shoots is an illustration of what more can be achieved through working together rather than exploiting our differences.
Dr Ben Garrod is a broadcaster, teaching fellow at Anglia Ruskin University and trustee of the Jane Goodall Institute
