Remembering Dr. Jane Goodall: Her Passion for Responsible Animal Tourism-and Her Hope for the Future

"The main answer is, how is the place tourism managed? That's the absolute key. In many countries, the government finds that people will pay to go and see, for example, mountain gorillas in Rwanda. So the researchers there said, 'No more than six people at a time, and they can't stay more than an hour.' Well, the governments there think, 'Okay, we get all this money for six.'"

"When I caught up with Dr. Jane Goodall in 2023, she was visiting the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies in Colorado, where she gave three lectures to local school children on behalf of the Jane Goodall Institute and her youth organization Roots & Shoots. It was early autumn in Colorado, and the last hummingbirds of summer dashed from flower to flower before embarking on their fall migration."

Jane Goodall visited the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies in Colorado in 2023 and gave lectures to local school children representing the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots. She expressed deep affection for birds and all living things and found the wild landscape energizing. She emphasized that tourism has two sides and that the critical factor is how tourism is managed. She warned that governments and operators can over-expand visitation, harming animals and destroying valuable ecotourism opportunities. She acknowledged that tourism sometimes exploits animals, but argued that well-managed tourism can have major positive effects, especially when knowledgeable local guides educate visitors.

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