Famed primatologist Jane Goodall, who was scheduled to appear at an event Wednesday Pasadena, has died at age 91 from natural causes.
. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, she “passed away due to natural causes.
“She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States,” according to a statement posted on social media by the Jane Goodall Institute. “Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.”
Goodall had been scheduled to speak at a late-morning event at EF Academy in Pasadena to announce a student-led effort to plant more than 5,000 trees in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities over the next three to five years. The effort, known as TREEAMS, was a partnership including EF Academy Pasadena, Saint Mark’s School in Altadena and dozens of other schools, along with organizations such as UCLA School of Education, SoLa Foundation and EcoRise.
The event announcing the program went on as scheduled without Goodall.
In a prepared statement issued before the event, Goodall said, “The TREEAMS movement represents the very best of what young people can achieve when they come together with courage and compassion. By planting trees, they are helping restore ecosystems, combat climate change, and bring healing to communities in need.”
Shawna Marino of EF Academy told City News Service in an email the tree-planting program “is an important part of (Goodall’s) incredible legacy.”
Goodall, a lifelong advocate for the protection of endangered species, is best known for immersing herself into the habitat of chimps in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park in the 1960s, documenting the personalities of individual chimpanzees and their human-like characteristics.
Only in her 20s at the time, Goodall gained fame for the close relationship she formed with the chimps she was studying, even finding herself accepted as a member of a particular group of the animals for nearly two years.
In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization that “empowers people to make a difference for all living things.”
In 1991, she worked with a group of students in Tanzania to form Roots & Shoots, which is the Institute’s global environmental and humanitarian youth program.