‘We have to find a different way of living’: Jane Goodall on the covid-19 crisis

Renowned British primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall laughs when I ask if the world will be better prepared to face pandemics and other disease outbreaks that might hit us in the future. Speaking over the phone from the UK, the 86-year-old says most countries were not ready to handle an outbreak of such magnitude but believes people will learn from the current travails and be “more prepared". Goodall’s behavioural research on chimpanzee populations in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, starting 1960, remains a pioneering piece of work on understanding more about the closest living relatives to humans. A new 2-hour documentary, Jane Goodall: The Hope, highlighting her work and journey to becoming one of the most renowned figures in wildlife conservation, premieres in India at 8pm on 22 April, on the National Geographic channel. It comes as no surprise that in some of her recent interviews, Goodall has called for a “global ban" on wildlife trade, given the possible crucial role of a wet market in China where the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is believed to have originated. Stricter regulations on wildlife trafficking, farming and consumption of wild animals have been debated for long. It’s not always absolutely clear where the virus originally came from, but the steps by which it has moved from one animal to another to a person, are pretty well understood. There will be a point of no return, and it is not just pandemics, which are expected to get worse if we don’t start respecting nature and realizing we are a part of it. You are feeling the effect of climate change in India and you have huge problems with people crowding into animal habitats. I mean, world politicians, certainly in the US at the beginning, and the UK as well, simply said, “Oh don’t worry, it’s not going to be too bad.