Jane Goodall's legacy of courage and hope

The primatologist closed the gap between humanity and the rest of the natural world, dedicating her life to understanding and protecting it. By Tiara Walters

- By Tiara Walters

By now, you don't need reminding who Jane Goodall was and will forever remain. By now, the past months' global outpouring of grief over the death of a messiah for nature has played itself out on your screen or newspaper many times a day. Jane. Jane. Jane.

Maybe you're stirred by a planet in distress. Maybe you're not. But suppose you are, then you probably recall not only where you were when you found out that Our Burning Planet's Hero of the Year had left us. You probably recall precisely how you felt when you heard or read the news. Invincible, forever-there Jane - gone, gone, gone, when we least needed her to leave.

Primatologist Jane Goodall, who died on 1 October at age 91 while on tour in the US, bridged the chasm between humanity and the rest of the natural world by documenting tool use in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. She held up the mirror, showing Homo sapiens that it was less unique than it had thought.

Of course, the Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell argues that high-achieving "outliers" are as much a product of their innate and honed abilities as they are the result of their birthplace, support network and capacity to speak to the questions of their time. That's a kind way of saying most Janes - and there are many unsung ones - don't stand a chance of being the kind of Jane whose loss the world has so deeply felt.