The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(26)
Once reintroduced into the park, the wolves brought the elk population down from about seventeen thousand to a more sustainable four thousand. Scavenger species like coyotes, eagles, and ravens started thriving, as did the grizzlies. Even the elk were better off as their population stabilized at a healthier and more resilient size—they are no longer starving to death in the winter. For humans, the drinking water in the area around the park became cleaner and the tourism industry grew dramatically with the wolves back. I was beginning to see what Jane meant about the tapestry of life and the interconnection between all species.
“If only the media would give more space to the uplifting, hopeful news that we find everywhere,” Jane concluded.
I asked Jane if she was ever asked if the money spent on conserving animals should be better used to help all the people in desperate need.
“You bet, I get asked that a lot,” Jane said.
“How do you reply?”
“Well, I point out that I personally believe that animals have as much right to inhabit this planet as we do. But also that we are animals as well, and JGI, like many other conservation organizations today, does care about people. In fact, it has become increasingly clear that conservation efforts will not be successful and sustainable unless the local communities benefit in some way and become involved. They must go hand in hand.”
“And you initiated this kind of program around Gombe,” I said. “Can you tell me how that work began?”
“In 1987 I went to six countries in Africa where people were studying chimpanzees to find out more about why chimpanzee numbers were declining and what might be done about it. I learned a lot—about the destruction of forest habitats, the beginning of the bushmeat trade—that is, the commercial hunting of animals for food and the killing of mothers to sell their infants as pets or for entertainment. But during that same trip I began to realize also the plight faced by so many of the African people living in and around chimpanzee habitats. The terrible poverty, lack of health and education facilities, and degradation of the land.
“So I went on that trip to find out about chimp problems and realized they were inextricably linked to people problems. Unless we helped people, we could not help chimps. I began by learning more about the situation in the villages around Gombe.”
Jane told me that she thought most people found it hard to believe the level of poverty that existed then. There was no appropriate health care infrastructure, and no running water or electricity. Girls were expected to end their education after primary school to help in the house and on the farm and were married off as young as thirteen. Many older men had four wives and huge numbers of children.
“There was a primary school in each of the twelve villages around Gombe. The teachers had canes that were freely used, and much of the children’s time was spent in sweeping the bare earth of the schoolyard. Some villages had a clinic, but there were few medical supplies.
“And so, in 1994, JGI began Tacare. At the time it was a very new approach to conservation. George Strunden, who was the mastermind behind the program, selected a little team of seven local Tanzanians who went into the twelve villages and asked them what JGI could do to help. They wanted to grow more food and have better clinics and schools—so that’s where we started, working closely with Tanzanian government officials. We did not even talk about saving chimpanzees for the first few years.
“Because we started with local Tanzanians, the villagers came to trust us, and gradually we built a program that included tree planting and protecting water sources.”
“I heard you also set up microcredit banks?”
“Yes, I think this has been one of the really successful things we did. It was kind of magic that soon after Tacare began, Dr. Muhammad Yunus—who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and is one of my heroes—invited me to Bangladesh and introduced me to some of the women who had been among the first to receive tiny loans from his Grameen Bank. Dr. Yunus started this lending program because the big banks refused to give out small loans. The women told me it was the first time they had actually held money in their hands and the difference it had made. And that now they could afford to send their children to school. I was immediately determined to introduce this program to Tacare.
“On one of my subsequent visits to Gombe, the first recipients of the microloans that Tacare helped them obtain were invited to come and talk about the small businesses they had started. They were almost all women. One young woman—only about seventeen years old—was very shy but so eager to tell me how her life had changed. She had taken out a tiny loan and started a tree nursery, selling saplings for the village reforestation program. She was so proud. She had paid back her first loan; her business was making money; she was able to hire a young woman to help her; and she had actually been able to plan when she would have her second child, thanks to Tacare’s family planning information. And she told us she did not want more than three children because she wanted to be able to afford to educate them properly.”
A woman who received a Tacare loan and has begun a tree nursery. (JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE/GEORGE STRUNDEN)
“I know you see voluntarily curbing population growth,” I said, “and increasing access to education—especially for girls—as one of the keys to solving our environmental crisis.”
“Yes, absolutely essential. On a visit to another village,” Jane continued, “I gave a talk at the primary school and met one of the girls who had been awarded a Tacare scholarship that would enable her to move on to secondary education. She was very shy but excited at the idea of going to a secondary school in town where she would be a boarder.”