Jane Goodall: 'We must all do our bit to make the world a better place'

She won't name names, but bearing in mind "it's got Leonardo DiCaprio behind it", we can expect someone fairly stellar. And perhaps, at last, Goodall will stop being mistaken for fellow primate expert Dian Fossey, who was played by Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist.

"Everybody mixes us up," sighs Goodall. "But it can be funny. I was on a plane once, and the flight attendant said, 'It's an honour to have you on board, Miss Fossey.' I smiled, and didn't say anything, and thought, 'She's going to go and tell people who she had on her flight today, and they're going to tell her that Dian Fossey's dead, and she's going to think she's seen a ghost.'"

Even if people don't know Goodall's face, they're living in a world profoundly shaped by her work. Transplanting herself from genteel Bournemouth to the jungles of Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park in 1960, she was the first to record evidence of tool use by chimpanzees.

"I saw what we now call termite fishing," she recalls. "A chimp broke off a grass stem, pushed it down into the termite mound, then pulled it very carefully out and picked off the termites to eat. And boom! It was so remarkable – and I had such a mix of amazement and disbelief – that I didn't even send a telegram until I'd seen it on a few more occasions. Because at that time, Man was defined as the only creature capable of using tools."

Put simply, Goodall's observations redefined humanity.

Her discoveries helped convince a sceptical scientific establishment that chimps and humans shared a common ancestor. She saw their emotional depth up close, watching chimps hug, kiss and even tickle each other – actions previously thought unique to humans.

"One incident I'll never forget is when two chimps I called David and Goliath made nests in the same tree," she says. "Goliath, although the alpha male, always wanted reassurance from the very calm David. And he reached his hand up towards his friend, and David reached down, and they held hands."

Goodall also recorded "primitive civil war" between groups, and what she believes were the stirrings of spiritual behaviour, such as ritual-like gatherings at waterfalls. "If the chimps had language," she explains, "these might turn into an animistic religion – the worship of the sun and stars and things, like early humans."

As a woman in a male-dominated field, Goodall was used to being patronised. She even doubted her own prospects. "When, as a child, I'd dream of my future, I'd dream myself as a man," she admits. "Because only men did the things I wanted to do, and women didn't."

Today, the 87-year-old is one of the world's most decorated scientists – a Dame Commander of the British Empire, a UN Messenger of Peace, and one of Time's 100 most influential people. She continues to campaign tirelessly through the Jane Goodall Institute, promoting conservation and animal welfare.

It's no surprise to hear she "likes some chimps much better than some people". She's still outspoken against animal testing. "There is very, very little animal medical research that has led to changes," she argues. "The law states you can't put a new drug on the market until it's been tested on animals. The vaccine for polio was kept off the market for two years because it didn't work on some kind of animal. Scientists have now got a little chip that can replicate the organs – but it'll take for ever to get through, because the animal research industry is worth billions."

She's similarly blunt about politics. "Can we trust our current government? Not really." Nor does she believe enough is being done on the climate crisis: "I think what we're seeing from countries and corporations is only superficial change."

Yet she remains stubbornly optimistic. "I lived through World War Two," she says. "That was a hopeless time – Britain stood alone, unprepared – but we got through."

Her philosophy of hope is pragmatic rather than naïve. "Hope isn't looking at the world through rose-coloured spectacles and saying, 'Everything will be all right.' No, hope is like a very, very, very dark tunnel with a tiny gleam of light at the end. The light is hope, but we're at the other end of the tunnel, and to get there, we have to work really, really hard to navigate the obstacles that are in the way. That's why we've all got to get together now and do our little bit, whatever it is, to make the world a better place."

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