Published: 6:15AM GMT 23 Jan 2010
The conservationists whose work is celebrated in Jane Goodall’s book have demonstrated all manner of brave, messy, patient, self-sacrificing and occasionally rather barmy-sounding behaviour in their battle to preserve the Earth’s biodiversity. Some crawl through poison ivy to examine the faeces of rare wolves. Some risk death clinging to cliff faces in howling gales to peer into the nests of seabirds. One reptile lover gave the kiss of life to a crocodile.
The story that sticks most in my mind is that of William Heinrich, who had an unusual relationship with a peregrine falcon named Beer Can (BC) participating in Cornell University’s breeding programme in the Seventies. Several times a day Heinrich would climb up to one of the nesting ledges in BC’s chamber, carrying a dead bird. When BC flew over to accept the offering, Heinrich had to make eye contact with him while imitating the “eeeeeee-chip” falcon courtship call, then bow so that his head was level with the ledge. At which point (after a little practice) BC would mount Heinrich’s head and make a deposit in the man’s uniquely designed “copulation hat”. The bird, raised in captivity and consequently baffled by female birds, went on to become the first voluntary sperm donor in North America’s Peregrine Fund and went on to sire scores of birds from a spectacular species that had become extinct across eastern America. bguitar
After decades of research as a primatologist, Goodall has campaigned for conservation since the late Eighties. So much of the news she hears and has to pass on is bad. Forests are being felled, seabeds dredged and ice caps melted. She acknowledges that we are heading towards “the sixth great extinction”, this time caused by humans. In the face of global-scale habitat destruction, she knows how easy it can be to despair and to feel that it’s impossible to make a difference. So in 2002 she began collecting a few upbeat stories for what was intended to be a slender work and ended up with enough to fill this whopping volume.
I boggled at how close to the brink some of these species had come – and how well they had recovered with intelligent human intervention. Goodall tells of a tree – the last of its kind – which had almost been grazed to death by goats and was finally killed by a forest fire, yet, with a little help from horticulturists, found the strength to produce seeds from its last branch and survived. And who could fail to be moved by the tale of New Zealand’s “Old Blue” – the female black robin – whose co-operation with a biologist’s ingeniously planned avian adultery ensured the survival of her kind.
But although Hope for Animals and Their World is packed with great deeds, it isn’t a great read. Goodall and her co-authors are kind, succinct and accurate purveyors of information, but they’re not very writerly when it comes to capturing the unique natures of the often exotic creatures they want to inspire us to help save, or the personalities of their human advocates.
As Goodall crosses continents visiting conservationists, she’s so nice she feels the need to give credit to a lot of “lovely” wives and husbands and give thanks for the “lovely” meals she’s served, generating a tone that’s more “round robin” than black robin.
That said, I was impressed by the honest way she wrote about her motivation to conserve. Although she can make all the usual logical arguments for the importance of biodiversity, she is bold enough to be emotional, even spiritual. For Goodall, and so many of her colleagues, it is simply about love. She includes an old photo of a chimpanzee reaching out to her and writes of how her “heart melted”. We see images of grown men cuddling flightless parrots. We applaud the guy causing a stink on American ferries in tourist season with his boxes of rotting quails' carcases full of endangered burying beetles. We cheer on the Columbian charity that clears plastic bags from the rainforest and helps local women make a profit by crocheting them into tote bags.
It seems small but collectively it could be huge. And if we feel this glow of goodness reading about the work of others, how great would we feel to participate? The book ends with a list of ways we can get involved. For by nurturing nature, she argues, surely we nurture our own souls.
Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink
by Jane Goodall
WOW
