Disneynature’s Chimpanzee is a great film featuring Dr. Jane Goodall that is great for the whole family. Learn more with this interview with Dr. Jane Goodall.
I had the honor of being apart of a conference call with Dr. Jane Goodall, it was to talk about Disneynature’s latest film Chimpanzee. I was hoping to have seen it by now but it’s not showing locally. I have seen other Disneynature films and all have been beautiful, educational, and enjoyable for the whole family. I’m sure Chimpanzee will be more of the same.
The first week of the film, Disneynature donated a percent of the box office profits to the Jane Goodall Institute. My question to Dr. Jane Goodall was, what kind of projects the funds would be used for, her is what she said,
“The funds will help our work in the Republic of Congo. Specifically, the funds will help protect the chimpanzees’ home, the tropical forest; educate the next generation; and care for orphaned chimpanzees at the sanctuary there. We’re really, really grateful to Disneynature for making this donation during the first week of the showing of the film. Please, all of you, tell everybody to go in the first week, because that’s when we get the percentage of the box office.”
Someone else on the conference call asked Dr. Jane Goodall about the sanctuary and here is what she said,
“We run the largest sanctuary for orphaned chimpanzees in Africa in the Republic of Congo. These chimpanzees are orphaned by the commercial bushmeat trade—that’s shooting wild animals for their meat and selling it. Sometimes mothers are shot and their babies are orphaned. There is no meat on the baby chimp so they’re sold in the marketplaces. The government will confiscate them and we are caring for them, so lots and lots of little Oscars. Some of the money from Disneynature will help us care for these orphans.”
Someone else asked, “I’ve heard you say that you hope this movie reaches into our hearts; that we’re not the only beings with personality and thoughts; that chimps are a lot like us. Do you think this film is a good way to introduce the importance of biodiversity and survival of the species?” And Dr. Jane Goodall said,
“Yes, because I don’t think anybody can come away from this movie and not be touched, not understand that chimpanzees like us do indeed have personalities. They can solve problems, reason things out, and absolutely, they have emotions. People will understand better. They’ll all fall in love with little Oscar. There is no way you can’t. I think a lot of people will have, as I do, a soft spot for Freddy who rescues little Oscar.”
I’m hoping that this real understanding of what’s going on in the chimpanzee community, deep in the heart of the forest, will make people more aware and more ready to help us in our efforts to protect chimpanzees, which we’re doing in several different African countries. In order to save the chimpanzees, we have to protect their forest home. It’s protecting these tropical rain forests that does indeed preserve very many other animals, and plants, and rich biodiversity, which is so important. Also, saving the forest is helping us with clean water supplies, with fresh air, and above all, sequestering CO2 so that it slows down global warming.”
Here are Dr. Jane Goodall’s closing thoughts,
“Also, I’d like to add one thing. There is one program of ours that I’d really love to tell you about. That’s our program for youth, Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots. It began in Tanzania with 12 secondary school students. It’s now in more than 120 countries. It involves young people from preschool all the way through university. On their own, every group chooses three different kinds of projects to make the world a better place. One to help people, one to help animals—and we certainly hope that the young people will, for example, raise money to be a JGI Chimp Guardian and learn about chimps, but they can also help other animals—and a project to help the environment that we all share.
The main message: Every single one of us makes a difference, every single day. If we would just think about the consequences of the choices we make—what we buy, what we wear, what we eat. How did that affect the environment? Did it involve cruelty to animals? Did this involve sweatshop labor in other countries? If we just start thinking that way, and thinking about choices we make, like turning taps off, and saving electricity, and riding a bicycle if possible—these kinds of little things.
Now knowing that there are literally thousands, millions of people around the planet beginning to think this way, it’s when more people start making the right choices that the environment, and the future, will begin to see the change we need to have. Because you hear we haven’t inherited this planet from our parents, we borrowed it from our children. But we’ve been stealing, stealing, stealing, and it’s time we start paying back.
Any of you who can encourage young people of all ages, from all backgrounds, to look up rootsandshoots.org, as well as our own janegoodall.org websites, I will be very, very grateful to you, and so will the chimps, and so will the children.”
The work Dr. Jane Goodall has done for many years is amazing and this film can help further her work with the chimps. I encourage everyone to take their families to go see Chimpanzee and also to watch past Disneynature films. If you have seen the film I would love to hear what you thought about it.
Disneynature’s Chimpanzee is available now on Amazon.
Leave a Reply