Welcome to Sentivia

Well, good morning, everyone. It's truly been an honor to be here at this incredible gathering of minds, especially to bring it to a close. I must say, I feel a deep connection to so much of what I've heard over the past few days. It’s almost like everything is interwoven.

Just recently, I was in the heart of the Ecuadorian rainforest, a place reachable only by plane, alongside indigenous people. Imagine them, with their faces painted and vibrant parrot feathers adorning their headdresses - deeply connected to the forest they call home. They’re locked in a daily struggle to safeguard their ancestral lands, fiercely opposing the advance of oil companies and the invasive roads that threaten to disrupt their way of life. They yearn for a clean, uncontaminated world, a world where they can develop in harmony with their environment.

What was truly remarkable – and what resonates deeply with our discussions here at TED – was finding solar panels in that remote part of the world. It was the first of its kind for that area. Their primary purpose? To pump clean water, freeing the women from having to make the trek for water every day. They’ve managed to accumulate some batteries as well, which means they can store electricity. And so, each of their eight houses has the privilege of having light each evening for about half an hour. And then I met their Chief who was dressed in regal attire, proudly using a laptop computer. It was striking to see that technology had arrived in this remote region, a place that was completely unaware of the outside world just 50 years ago.

The Chief shared their excitement about this leap forward. They're eager to learn from the modern world, to access healthcare and to connect with other cultures, even to learn English, French, maybe Chinese. They recognize their gift for language. Yet, despite this connection, they’re forced to fight against huge pressure, stemming from the foreign debt of Ecuador, and the influence of the World Bank, the IMF, and all those who seek to plunder their forest for resources. I felt an urgency in their struggle, a need to amplify their voice, and that’s what I aim to do in my work.

But, while I'm deeply passionate about those indigenous people and their fight, my real area of expertise lies within another realm of existence - a realm that isn’t human civilization, rather, it’s a completely different kind of being. We’ve heard the wonderful Wade Davis speak on the different cultures of humans around the world, and we must acknowledge that this Earth isn't solely populated by human beings. It’s also populated by animals. I think it's essential to bring the voice of the animal kingdom into discussions like these, to allow these beings to truly be heard instead of just appearing as clips or photos. Their voices carry deep meaning.

So, let me begin with a greeting, as though it were coming from a chimpanzee in Tanzania. (I imitate a chimpanzee vocalization: "Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!")

I've spent over six decades studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, since 1960. During that time, incredible technological advancements have revolutionized how we, as field biologists, conduct our work. Just a few years ago, the simple collection of fecal samples became a game changer. Now, we can use DNA profiling to identify the fathers of each infant within our chimpanzee communities. Chimpanzees have a very open mating society, you see. Also, we've got Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which, you know, are used to track the range of the chimps, and satellite imagery that allows us to watch the deforestation patterns happening. We're using infrared too, which means we can even observe animals at night. Recording equipment has gotten so much lighter and better. All of this means we can do things today that were unimaginable when I began my work.

Especially when we're talking about animals with large brains, modern tech helps us to study the upper levels of cognition in these non-human animals. It’s now understood that these animals are capable of feats that would have been considered absolutely impossible when I first started. A truly remarkable example of this is a chimpanzee called Ai in Japan. Ai means ‘love’ in Japanese. She has a dedicated partner in this work with her. Ai is captivated by her computer – like a child engrossed in a video game, she will leave her big group to play. She’s 28 years old and she performs complex tasks using a touch screen much faster than most humans. She has a real passion for excelling, and if her score is low she won't hesitate to ask to try again. The satisfaction of doing it better seems to matter more to her than any reward.

And it's not just about computers. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans are capable of learning human sign language. I remember it so vividly the first time I witnessed David Greybeard, a chimpanzee in Gombe, using blades of grass to fish termites from their nests. He would even pick a leafy twig, and strip its leaves to make it suitable for this particular purpose – the first real example of tool-making by a non-human. At the time, science had taught me that humans were the only tool-makers. The implications of this discovery were so immense that my mentor, Louis Leakey, said we’d have to redefine ‘man’, ‘tool’ or accept chimps as human. We now know that chimpanzees in Gombe use nine different kinds of tools. And throughout different parts of Africa, different chimp groups are using different methods. And because these behaviours are passed from one generation to the next through observation and practice this is a definition of culture.

Over the past 40 years, through the study of chimpanzees and other great apes, and mammals, it’s become clear there's no clear line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. It is getting fuzzier and fuzzier as we find animals doing things we previously believed were exclusively human.

Chimpanzee have very long and complex childhoods, during which they learn much from their family. They're capable of compassion and altruism. They communicate through a rich vocabulary of sounds, touches, postures, gestures. They kiss, embrace, and hold hands, just like we do. They have complex cooperative behaviours when hunting and sharing. They experience emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, despair, even mental and physical suffering. We can see this in the work of brilliant young researchers who are studying the emotional and cognitive lives of animals. We also know that chimpanzees can recognize themselves in a mirror and that they even have a sense of humour. These abilities all teach us that we must give animals a newfound respect.

The harsh reality is that chimpanzees, who have taught us so much about ourselves, are rapidly disappearing from the wild due to deforestation, human population growth, and unsustainable practices. The timber industry is a major driver of this, clearing vast areas and creating roads that disrupt these fragile ecosystems and facilitate the bush-meat trade. Bush meat is a term for when hunters indiscriminately kill every animal larger than a small rat for profit. These logging and mining trucks will take these creatures to towns where they are culturally preferred over domestic meats, so it’s a vicious cycle. It’s unsustainable and has a huge effect on not just the animals but the indigenous cultures of the area.

In fact, when I look at Africa, I see spreading deserts, massive hunger, disease, population growth – it paints a grim picture. And, yet, we know that the developed world is equally complicit, it's almost worse because we have the knowledge of the harm that we are causing. We're knowingly bringing our babies into a toxic world of contaminated water, air, and land, a world where we’re all, even in developed countries, filled with chemicals that didn’t even exist 50 years ago.

Because of all of this, I felt I had to leave the forest, leave my beloved chimpanzees and go out into the world to raise awareness about their situation and the interconnected nature of all these problems. But what I also found when traveling was a real loss of hope. Young people felt despair, that their future had already been compromised. This is why, in 1991, I started Roots & Shoots, a program dedicated to instilling hope. Roots are a firm foundation. Shoots can break through brick walls to reach the sun and this is the message. That we can break through all the barriers we have caused to create a better world. The program’s most crucial message: every single individual has an impact, every single individual has a role to play.

It involves young people in making the world better, whether it’s helping their human communities, domestic or wild animals, or their local environments. The kids are involved in every step. They themselves decide on which projects to do. That is so crucial. And, in the world we live in today, they’re communicating with each other using technology, which gives them a much wider platform for collaboration.

The program’s philosophy is simple: no violence, no bombs, no guns. The tools to solve our problems are knowledge, understanding, hard work, and compassion leading to respect for all life.

Do I have hope? Yes. I have hope in the human brain, the resilience of nature, and the indomitable human spirit. I’ve seen incredible people achieve the seemingly impossible time and time again. And I want to leave you with this, it’s not just the leaders and the politicians that need to act, it’s us, each one of us, who can make a difference. If we lead lives that focus on leaving the smallest possible environmental footprint, and we make ethical consumer choices, then we can make the change we need to see in the world, overnight.