The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(57)

And there he was—Beech, the tree that was deeded to her in the handwritten will Jane had her grandmother sign. Looking out into the garden at dusk, I could make out the black silhouette of Beech. I thought how fitting that we would close with a beech tree, considered to be the queen of British trees, having thrived since the last Ice Age.

“I know you can’t see him properly in the dark,” Jane said, “but let me describe him to you. His bark is smooth and gray and his green leaves have recently turned to a soft autumn yellow and orange. And now they are beginning to fall.


In Beech—one of my closest childhood friends. (JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE/COURTESY OF THE GOODALL FAMILY)



“He’s still standing,” Jane added, “much taller than he was when I was a child. I couldn’t climb him now, but I sit under him with a sandwich at lunchtime.”

“Maybe someday when this pandemic is behind us I can join you for a sandwich under Beech,” I said.

“We can always hope,” said Jane.

“Well, I think that has to be the perfect quote to end our conversation on,” I said.

After we waved goodbye and I closed my laptop, I thought of Jane on the other side of the world. For this day her work was over, but I knew that it would start again the next—Zooms and Skypes, taking her message of hope around a world that needed that message so desperately. “Good luck, Jane,” I thought. And I felt another hope rise in me, that she would have the strength to continue for many more years. And I also knew that there would be a day when she would begin her next great adventure, binoculars and notebook at the ready. And that the indomitable human spirit in all of us would finish what she could not.





Conclusion:

A Message of Hope from Jane



This is my “studio” under the eaves of our family home, the Birches, where I have been “grounded” during the pandemic. It is also my bedroom. (RAY CLARK)



Dear Reader,

I am writing to you now from my home in Bournemouth on a very cold and very windy morning in February. It happens to be the start of the Lunar New Year, and I’ve been getting messages from all my Chinese friends—every one of them full of hope that it will be a better year than the last one. It was a year and a half ago that Doug and I began this conversation about hope in my home in Tanzania. And what a time it has been. First, Doug never got to Gombe because he had to rush back to America to be with his very sick father. Our second conversation worked out as planned—in the Netherlands. But the third, which was to have been here in Bournemouth so that Doug could see where I grew up, was first postponed and then canceled because of the pandemic. A pandemic that is still causing havoc around the world.

The tragedy is that a pandemic such as this one has long been predicted by those studying zoonotic diseases. Approximately 75 percent of all new human diseases come from our interactions with animals. COVID-19 is likely one of them. They start when a pathogen, such as a bacteria or virus, spills over from an animal to a human and bonds with a cell in a human. And this may lead to a new disease. Unfortunately for us, COVID-19 is highly contagious and it spread rapidly, soon affecting almost every country around the globe.

If only we had listened to the scientists studying zoonotic diseases who have long warned that such a pandemic was inevitable if we continued to disrespect nature and disrespect animals. But their warnings fell on deaf ears. We didn’t listen and now we are paying a terrible price.

By destroying habitats we force animals into closer contact with people, thus creating situations for pathogens to form new human diseases. And as the human population grows, people and their livestock are penetrating ever deeper into remaining wilderness areas, wanting more space to expand their villages and to farm. And animals are hunted, killed, and eaten. They or their body parts are trafficked—along with their pathogens—around the world. They are sold in wildlife markets for food, clothing, medicine, or for the trade in exotic pets. Conditions in almost all of these markets are not only horribly cruel but usually extremely unhygienic—blood, urine, and feces from stressed animals all over the place. Perfect opportunity for a virus to hop onto a human—and it is thought that this pandemic, like SARS, was created in a Chinese wildlife market. HIV-1 and HIV-2 originated from chimpanzees sold for bushmeat in wildlife markets in Central Africa. Ebola possibly started from eating gorilla meat.

The horrific conditions in which billions of domestic animals are bred for food, milk, and eggs have also led to the spawning of new diseases such as the contagious swine flu that started on a factory farm in Mexico and noninfectious ones like E. coli, MRSA (staph), and salmonella. And don’t forget that all the animals I’ve been talking about are individuals with personalities. Many—and especially pigs—are highly intelligent, and each one knows fear, misery, and feels pain.

But it is important to share the good, positive things that have emerged. During the various lockdown periods around the world, when there was less traffic and many industries were halted, fossil fuel emissions decreased significantly. Some people from the big cities had the luxury, perhaps for the first time, of breathing clean air and seeing the stars shine brightly in the night sky. Many people shared their delight in being able to hear the song of birds as the noise level decreased. Wild animals appeared in the streets of towns and cities. And although these things were temporary, it helped more people to understand what the world could—and should—be like.