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Securing a future for chimpanzees

Nature volume 466, pages 180–181 (2010)Cite this article

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Fifty years after setting foot in Gombe, Jane Goodall calls for urgent action to save our closest living relatives from extinction in the wild. Conservationists and local people must collaborate, she and Lilian Pintea conclude.

When I arrived in what is now Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park 50 years ago this week, I brought with me a pair of old binoculars and a notebook. It was 1960, the same year that a US satellite collected the first image of Earth from outer space. Day after day, I sat on a peak that afforded one of the best views of Gombe and its chimpanzees (see picture). I could see my camp in the valley to the south, and the dense forest of the lower Kasekela Valley to the north. I gazed through my binoculars at the chimpanzees feasting on fruits and leaves and began to gather my first impressions of their daily life, unaware that this would lead to a 50-year study of chimpanzee behaviour, and to a career in international conservation, education, advocacy and fund-raising.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jane Goodall is founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 600 Arlington, Virginia 22203, USA, and a UN Messenger of Peace,

    Jane Goodall

  2. Lilian Pintea is director of conservation science at the Jane Goodall Institute. lpintea@janegoodall.org,

    Lilian Pintea

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  1. Jane Goodall
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  2. Lilian Pintea
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Goodall, J., Pintea, L. Securing a future for chimpanzees. Nature 466, 180–181 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466180a

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