Jane Goodall on overpopulation, peace and the purpose of zoos

Extract from ABC News 

Wednesday 21 September 2016 4:12PM

Image: Dame Jane Goodall is a renowned primatologist and anthropologist. (Getty Images)

Can animal enclosures ever be justified? What role does world peace play in protecting our ecosystems? Renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall speaks to the Religion and Ethics Report for the UN International Day of Peace.
Why is overpopulation a threat to the environment?
The problem is not just the size of the global population, but the unsustainable lifestyle of many of us.
We're using up resources at a faster rate than the planet can replenish them.

What I've come to realise more and more is the interconnectedness of everything.

Jane Goodall

It's getting worse. More countries are becoming economically successful—which is good in one way—but it's putting an increasing demand on poor old Mother Nature.
There's the unsustainable lifestyle of many, and then it's poverty. If you're really poor, and so many people are, then you have to cut down the last trees to desperately try and grow food.

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As the Western world is moving in to take more of Africa's natural resources, it's creating these situations. Gombe National Park, for example, used to be part of a belt of of forests, now it's a collection of patches of forest.
What effect has that had on the chimpanzee population?
The chimp numbers have plummeted. People and cattle have moved into the forests. The forest turns into woodland, then farmland.
Usually, because soils are so poor, when they lose the tree cover, soil becomes increasingly infertile and then more or less useless for farming.
In addition to that there's hunting, there's the bush meat trade, the commercial hunting of wild animals for food—very different from the old subsistence hunting—and on top of that a brand new demand for chimpanzees for entertainment. For circuses, advertising, and pets.
When you first went to Gombe, you experienced war.
The war that we experienced was the genocide in Burundi. There were refugees pouring past us, along the lake in boats. We saw the effects of war.
Did that influence your concern for peace?
What I've come to realise more and more is the interconnectedness of everything. People in conflict areas can't really concentrate on preserving the environment; they're concentrating on preserving their lives.
Peace is part of a whole, flourishing, healthy ecosystem. A healthy ecosystem means an area where the wildlife and the environment can live in harmony with the people around it.
The other major threat is the use of chimpanzees for animal experimentation.
Fortunately, in almost all countries now, the use of chimpanzees has been discontinued. Partly because it's very expensive, partly because of protests, and partly because that sort of experimentation doesn't yield results.
The other primates—particularly the Rhesus monkeys—are still used. Particularly, they are used in neurological experiments which include extreme physical restraints. Their heads are put in a vice and they can't move.
They're deprived of water, and sleep, and it's extremely painful to watch secretly filmed films of these horrendous experiments.
Some say that these experiments have been beneficial in helping science to understand diseases like Alzheimer's, for example.
I'm not enough of a scientist to know how much primate research has contributed. I just pray it has contributed something for all the suffering that it's produced.
What about the purpose of zoos—is there a place for them?
It depends on the zoo. The really good zoos with ethical standards do commit to looking after their animals.
The conditions in which the animals are kept have improved hugely. We have one wonderful woman at our foundation, Hilda Tresz, and she has travelled around the world, to bad zoos in Egypt, and Asia.
She's made enormous differences. We can't wave a wand and create a large enclosure, but she improves what goes on inside the enclosure: giving them lots to do, things to climb. That can make a very big difference.
Animals are also kept in climate zones they're not suited for.
This is the kind of exploitation that's wrong and hopefully will stop. It's only the really successful zoos that can afford to adjust the temperature.
There's this unfortunately untrue belief that animals in the wild must have idyllic lives. This isn't true!
I know about countries where chimpanzees are caught in snares, they lose a hand or a foot—that's very common—their habitat is encroached upon, they hear the chainsaws coming, cattle are moving into the forest.
Then you look at a group in a really good zoo—like in Sydney—and you think, 'I'd rather be here to be honest!'