How to arrest conservation's decline as a global issue

Dr Jane Goodall at an event to open her first regional office in the Arab world, supported by Expo City Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

Jane Goodall, the British primatologist best known for her 1960s research with chimpanzees in Africa, was an articulate and determined campaigner. She knew the value of hope, especially how it can motivate the next generation to rise to the challenge of building a better future for our ailing planet.

During a visit in January to the UAE, where she opened a bee sanctuary named after her in the heart of Expo City Dubai, the UN Messenger of Peace told The National that such a project “gives children hope, helps them understand they matter and make a difference, and they influence their parents”.

“If we all lose hope we sink into apathy and do nothing, then we are doomed,” she added.

'If we don’t conserve the natural world, we are doomed', warns Jane Goodall

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Dr Goodall’s focus on the fatalism that threatens to stall the momentum behind environmental activism was timely. The international community is living through a moment when critical issues such as climate change, environmental degradation and declining biodiversity are dropping down a global agenda overwhelmed by armed conflicts and political polarisation.

A global study by Ipsos in 2021 found that 20 per cent of young people from 27 countries thought nothing can be done to reverse global warming. A worldwide study carried out by the UN Development Programme last year revealed that even though most people think about climate change and the environment every day, relatively few respondents had confidence that governments can lead or that solutions will be implemented.

It is here that Dr Goodall’s legacy is instructive. In her early days, often operating in isolation and unsupported, she was able to carry out rigorous fieldwork while popularising science and reaching out to children. Her skilled use of books and television to get her message across helped her to forge consequential and practical partnerships, many of them with the UAE.

A global study by Ipsos in 2021 found that 20 per cent of young people from 27 countries think nothing can be done to reverse global warming

By doing so, she was able to develop a form of conservation advocacy that did not focus solely on one species and its challenges but understood the world’s biodiversity crises as part of a collective environmental picture, one that’s defined in 2025 by global warming, resource limits and the effects of human activity.

This nuanced definition of environmentalism, plus a determination to prove that meaningful action can still be taken, has helped to inform national and global policies. The UAE, a country Dr Goodall repeatedly visited, has long embraced conservation and biodiversity as it balances urbanisation with preserving its fragile desert and marine ecosystems. This has often gone hand in hand with international partnerships, such as work with Unesco and the UN Environment Programme. Next week, Abu Dhabi will host the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress.

However, it is the next generation who will grow up in a world where more species are under threat of extinction amid a rapidly changing climate. Young people are already well aware of the dangers – the key issue is to ensure that they believe they can take consequential action. Despite the challenges ahead, Dr Goodall’s legacy leaves plenty of room for optimism. “Children much more quickly understand the cumulative effect of small choices," the campaigner said while presenting awards to UAE chapters of her foundation’s Roots and Shoots programme. "They get it and that’s good.”