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"On an afternoon some 48 years ago, Jane Goodall approached a chimpanzee she&amp;amp;#8217;d been observing for months in the jungles of eastern Africa. The chimp, whom she&amp;amp;#8217;d named David Graybeard thanks to his silvery facial hair, often fled when she drew near. This time was different. &amp;amp;#8220;I picked up a red fruit and held it out to him,&amp;amp;#8221; says Goodall. The animal looked into her eyes, took the fruit and dropped it. Then he gently squeezed her fingers, a gesture chimpanzees make to reassure one another. No researcher had ever reported winning that kind of trust from a chimp in the wild. &amp;amp;#8220;It was a feeling of awe and wonder and joy,&amp;amp;#8221; says Goodall, still sounding amazed almost five decades later, &amp;amp;#8220;a communication across worlds.&amp;amp;#8221; Since that encounter, Goodall&amp;amp;#8212;the revolutionary primatologist whose discoveries helped force science to redraw the dividing line between humans and animals&amp;amp;#8212;has devoted herself to bridging disparate worlds. Now 74, she&amp;amp;#8217;s still a leading voice for animal rights and conservation, and travels an average of 300 days a year. &amp;amp;#8220;If there were some kind of pope for a religion of naturalists, that person would make Jane Goodall its first saint,&amp;amp;#8221; says Michael Fay, a highly regarded explorer and conservationist. Goodall&amp;amp;#8217;s fascination with the natural world was, from the beginning, unquenchable. As a toddler in England, she brought earthworms to bed. Once she could read, she devoured Tarzan books. (That other Jane was &amp;amp;#8220;a wretched woman,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;I would have been a better mate for Tarzan.&amp;amp;#8221;) Too poor to attend college, she worked as a secretary, then saved up for a trip to Africa. At 26 she persuaded the great anthropologist Louis Leakey to send her to the vast, untamed Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, in what is now Tanzania, to observe the then mysterious lives of chimps. Until that time, researchers had despaired of ever getting a good look at their natural behavior in the wild, given what one scientist called &amp;amp;#8220;doubt whether the observer could survive the effort.&amp;amp;#8221; Undaunted, Goodall would hike into the jungle, so enthralled she&amp;amp;#8217;d barely stop to eat all day. At times, one aggressive male chimp would stomp on her back or drag her along the ground. In such situations, says Goodall, &amp;amp;#8220;all you can do is hold a tree and pray.&amp;amp;#8221; But her efforts paid off. After about six months of observation, she saw a chimp fashioning a blade of grass into a tool to capture termite grubs&amp;amp;#8212;an amazing sight, considering only humans were believed to use tools. Goodall&amp;amp;#8217;s telegram to Leakey prompted his famous reply: &amp;amp;#8220;Now we must redefine tool, redefine man or accept chimpanzees as human.&amp;amp;#8221; From her work, Goodall came to understand the chimps as individuals&amp;amp;#8212;some affectionate, some jealous, some needy. &amp;amp;#8220;She turned a black-and-white picture of anonymous animals into an endlessly fascinating soap opera,&amp;amp;#8221; says Harvard biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham. In 1986 she shifted her focus from studying primates to protecting them and their world&amp;amp;#8212;and ours. She got major research facilities to treat animal test subjects humanely; she helped persuade the presidents of Congo and Tanzania to create protected areas for wildlife; and she began giving speeches about global warming. Today, despite the alarm about the environment, &amp;amp;#8220;there&amp;amp;#8217;s great reason for optimism,&amp;amp;#8221; says Goodall. &amp;amp;#8220;Most people would like to do something to make the world a better place.&amp;amp;#8221; Through Roots &amp;amp; Shoots, a worldwide network she and 16 Tanzanian students started for young people in 1991, members launch projects that change habits (recycling at home), change landscapes (planting tree seedlings) and change lives (a group in Nepal is teaching child domestic workers to read and write). This year she endorsed the first of a line of products that will carry her &amp;amp;#8220;Good for All&amp;amp;#8221; label: The proceeds from her Green Mountain Tanzania Gombe Reserve coffee go to local farmers. Meanwhile, she&amp;amp;#8217;s impassioned a generation of eco-aware young women and men. Says Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute&amp;amp;#8217;s Center for Primate Studies at the University of Minnesota: &amp;amp;#8220;At book signings, you have young women in tears thanking Jane and saying, &amp;amp;#8216;Your book changed my life and made me see I could do what I wanted to do.&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; Goodall&amp;amp;#8217;s focus gives her the energy of a woman half her age. &amp;amp;#8220;You can&amp;amp;#8217;t solve all the problems of the world, but each day you can do something,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;A certain peace comes from doing what you feel you should be doing.&amp;amp;#8221;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/women-of-the-year/2008/jane-goodall>