Jane Goodall's Grandson on Why Hope Isn't a Feeling, It's a To-Do List

Five months after the world lost Jane Goodall, her grandson, Merlin Van Lawick, stepped onto a stage in Paris at the ChangeNOW environmental forum. He wasn't there to mourn, but to decode his grandmother's most enduring lesson: hope.

Turns out, for Goodall, hope wasn't some warm, fuzzy emotion you waited for. It was more like a discipline. A daily workout. Something you actively, relentlessly, worked towards.

Goodall famously pictured a dark tunnel with a light at the end. Her take? That light wasn't coming to you. You had to crawl. You had to scratch and claw and overcome every obstacle between you and that distant glow. Van Lawick put it simply: "Hope is rooted in action." Because apparently, that's where we are now: hope requires effort.

Goodall, of course, spent her life proving the power of that philosophy. From her revolutionary work with chimpanzees in Tanzania that fundamentally changed how science saw our primate cousins, to her tireless advocacy for animals as individuals and ecosystems as interconnected communities. She didn't just study the world; she galvanized generations of young people to get up and change it.

Van Lawick observed that her influence wasn't about pressure. She didn't strong-arm people into service. Instead, she laid out the facts, made people acutely aware of the ripple effects of their choices, and then let them decide. Even with her own grandkids, the touch was remarkably light. Van Lawick once harbored dreams of becoming a footballer. Goodall's sage response? A perfectly understated, "I think you'll become something else."

Which, if you think about it, is both impressive and slightly terrifying coming from a woman who literally changed the world's perception of nature. But it worked. And now, her grandson is carrying that torch, reminding us that if you want hope, you better get moving.