Center for Health and the Global Environment

Events
Upcoming Events

Recent Events
Global Environmental Citizen
2008 Award
Tenth Anniversary Award
2005 Award
2004 Award
2003 Award
2002 Award
2001 Award

Blue Hill Dinner

Address:

Harvard Medical School
401 Park Drive, 2nd Floor East
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617.384.8530
Fax: 617.384.8585
General Email Address

Directions

Global Environmental Citizen Award

2003 Global Environmental Citizen: Jane Goodall

On April 28, 2003, the Center presented Jane Goodall with the Global Environmental Citizen Award, a recognition given out annually by the Center for outstanding achievement in raising awareness of global environmental change.

The award ceremony, which took place at the New England Aqaurium in Boston, also featured a screening of an IMAX film based on Goodall's career called "Wild Chimpanzees."

The Award ceremony was followed by a gala dinner at Hamersley's Bistro for Center Supporters, Faculty and Staff provided by many of Boston's best chefs: Michel Nischan, Nora Pouillon and Dan Barber, all of whom have made outstanding efforts to use local, organic and sustainably produced food in their cuisine.

PRESS RELEASE

BOSTON, MA (April 28, 2003)– The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, the first medical school-based center in the United States bringing scientific rigor to the relationship between human health and the health of the global environment, awards its 2003 Global Environmental Citizen Award to Jane Goodall, PhD, CBE.

“Jane Goodall’s groundbreaking and captivating research with chimpanzees continues to change the way we perceive our animal cousins and ourselves,” says Eric Chivian, MD, HMS assistant professor, Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, and a former co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. “Through the Jane Goodall Institute, Dr. Goodall continues her research, and also pursues several profoundly important environmental initiatives, including the Congo Basin Project, which works to end the bushmeat trade that threatens to annihilate chimpanzees; Roots & Shoots, which encourages and supports students from preschool through university in projects that benefit people, animals, and the environment; and TACARE, a sustainable development and conservation program that involves 33 villages around Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania.

"The recent outbreak of Ebola in the Congo that has killed hundreds of primates and has caused over 100 human deaths demonstrates the important connection between the health of the environment and our own health," says Chivian. "We are not only endangering the lives of our closest animal relatives through practices of hunting and deforestation, we are threatening human life as well. "The handling of bushmeat is thought to have been responsible for the original spread of HIV from chimpanzees to humans and was the subject of a congressional briefing hosted by the Center and featuring Jane Goodall, held last February.

"Jane Goodall first brought the wonderful and fascinating world of wild primates to us in her early career, and now she brings us the urgent and desperate conservation needs of these threatened animals,” Gregory Stone, PhD, Vice President , Global Marine Programs, New England Aquarium. “She has a caring stewardship voice that speaks to everyone, and it must be listened to now more than ever."

Jane Goodall began her landmark study of chimpanzees in Tanzania in June 1960. One of Dr. Goodall's most significant discoveries came in her first year in Gombe National Park, when she saw chimps stripping leaves from stems, which they then used to fish for termites from mounds. This and subsequent observations of Gombe chimps making and using tools would force scientists to rethink their belief that man was the only animal that made tools.

Dr. Goodall established the Gombe Stream Research Center in 1964, which continues Dr. Goodall's work today, making it one of the longest uninterrupted wildlife studies in existence. In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) (http://www.janegoodall.org/), which supports the Gombe work and other research, education and conservation programs. In 1986, with news about the rapid decrease of chimpanzee populations across Africa, Dr. Goodall began working to save chimpanzees. She continues this work today, traveling an average 300 days per year to speak about the threats facing chimpanzees, other environmental crises, and her reasons for hope that humankind will ultimately solve the problems it has imposed on the earth. Since September 11, Dr. Goodall has emphasized the need for people to show compassion and tolerance.

“Every individual has a role to play in protecting our environment,” says Dr. Goodall. “It is an honor to receive this award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment, and on behalf of the many individuals who work with me, I want to thank the Center for its vitally important work.”

Her list of publications is extensive, including two overviews of her work at Gombe — In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window — as well as two autobiographies in letters, the spiritual autobiography Reason for Hope and many children's books. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, is recognized as the definitive work on chimpanzee behaviors and is the culmination of Jane Goodall's scientific career. Dr. Goodall has been the subject of numerous television documentaries and is featured in the large-screen format film, Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees (2002), which will be shown prior to the award ceremony.

In April 2002, Secretary-General Annan named Dr. Goodall a United Nations “Messenger of Peace.” Messengers help mobilize the public to get involved in work that makes the world a better place, serving as advocates in a variety of areas: poverty eradication, human rights, peace and conflict resolution, HIV/AIDS, disarmament, community development and environmentalism.