Dr. Sonia Kleindorfer, a friend and companion of Dr. Jane Goodall and scientist at the Konrad Lorenz Research Center and at the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology reflects on her legacy in the following touching tribute.
Thank you, dearest Jane, for your great presence. We will carry forward your message — to create hope through action and to strengthen the bond between people and nature for the well-being of all living beings.
I first met Jane when I was 23 years old, having just arrived in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, to study yellow baboons. Jane had chosen Mikumi as a parallel site to her pioneering research in Gombe Stream National Park, where, beginning in 1960, she revolutionized our understanding of chimpanzees and forever changed the way humans see themselves in relation to other animals. I had been tasked with bringing Jane a parcel — a task I gladly accepted. Over the years, we took many walks together, and I had the privilege of spending several weeks with her at Gombe Stream as well.
In 1991, I volunteered for the launch of Jane’s beloved Roots & Shoots program — her “favourite project,” as she often called it. Its aim was, and remains, to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding among cultures and beliefs, and to inspire every individual to take action to make the world a better place for animals, people, and the environment. I remember Jane’s words vividly: Humans are part of nature, and every individual matters.
Jane taught me that conservation must include people — their well-being, their hopes, their communities. This wisdom became the guiding principle of my own work. Every project since has included a community dimension, reflecting Jane’s belief that cooperation and shared purpose are essential to protecting the natural world.
Fast forward to 2024. True to the promise I made to myself three decades earlier — to always listen to community voices and to build with them — we began constructing the KLF Open Science Center in Grünau im Almtal. Jane, always generous and encouraging, agreed to plant a Tree of Hope for the Center.
When she arrived, the children of the local primary school sang to her and to the young tree. Nearby stood a great red beech tree, connected by a single leaf to a piano that translated its bioelectrical signals into sound. Jane kissed the leaf of the young Tree of Hope. Then she approached and embraced the older beech tree. It fell silent during the embrace — five seconds of stillness after four hours of continuous music — and then, as if responding to her, began to play a new melody. We call it Jane’s Song.
Jane always said, Hope is a verb.
In a letter I received two weeks before her passing on 1 October 2025, she wrote: "I hope my Tree of Hope will thrive — part of me is in that tree."
Let us all carry on her message of hope through action — great or small — for our communities and for the creatures, great and small, with whom we share this planet.
If you can, please support Roots & Shoots where you are, and the Jane Goodall Institute Austria — they carry on her legacy, as each of us can too.
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