Dr Goodall: Find a way to repair generations of environmental damage we’ve inflicted on the planet
(graphic courtesy of Tim Hamons)

“Spend a bit of time thinking about the consequences of the choices you make each day,” Dr Jane Goodall, the acclaimed conservationist and primatologist, told me on a recent visit to Singapore.

In town to speak at the Singapore International Foundation’s Ideas for a Better World Forum on 29 June, the UN messenger of peace said “every individual can make a difference”. The key, she said, is to ask “can I do without it” when considering any purchase or activity.

Dr Goodall is famous for her research on chimpanzees in Tanzania. But after seeing the trees cut down around the Gombe national park where she was doing her research in 1986, she has been on a mission to spread the message about the environment and conservation.

"I realised, everywhere, the forest is going,” she said.

On her fifth visit to Singapore, she said her objectives were “raising awareness to help the orangutans, raising more funds so we can grow”.

Singapore “can play a big role” in conservation and there is a lot more that people here can do, she said, citing examples such as creating roof gardens to grow food, converting waste to energy, saving water and turning thousands of tonnes of waste into “fantastic compost”.

Food

Choices about food were especially important, she said.

“Is it ethical, how far has it travelled, how polluting is it” should be questions we ask. If it’s not good for the environment, we can choose something else.

Yes, it costs more when you choose environmentally friendly products, but “are you or aren’t you prepared to spend more to save the future for your children”?

We could choose, for example, to eat little or no meat because it’s not just better for the animals, it’s better for the environment too.

The vegetarian who starts her day with homemade bread with English marmalade and ends it with a half slice of toast, an egg and perhaps a little chocolate, said eating “less meat or no meat is going to make a big difference”.

Much of the meat we eat comes from intensive farming, she said, relating that she had seen how intensively farmed meat “symbolises pain, fear and death”. And intensively farmed animals emit “huge amounts” of methane.

Phones

Another important choice we can make, she said, is about mobile phones.

“One of the big problems is that metal in the phones is found in Eastern Congo,” where it is often illegally mined and where there is “horrendous cruelty to people doing the mining”.

Buying a new phone less often can help save the environment and improve people’s lives. Recycling old phones would also help.

Friends

But a doomsayer Dr Goodall is not. As the title of one of her books makes clear, she believes there is Reason for Hope.

“Inspiring youth and encouraging them to join us, to give them hope,” was a key reason for visiting Singapore, she said.

Advising young people to join the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots environmental and humanitarian programme, she said they would “meet people who feel the same as they do”.

In that group, she said, they can “wait until they find something they’re passionate about”, then work for their cause and “don’t give up”. 

Regular Singapore Kopitiam contributor Richard Hartung is the founding president of the Jane Goodall Institute Singapore.

View Dr Jane Goodall’s speech and panel discussion on Sustainable Living in a Rapidly Urbanising World at the Singapore International Foundation’s Ideas for a Better World Forum.

Find out more about the Ideas for a Better World Forum.