The Nature of Hope: The World Jane Goodall Inspired

↑ Photo by Jane Goodall, Self Portrait. View purchase options.

Words by Ami Vitale  |  April 2026

This month, Dr. Jane Goodall DBE would have turned 92. It’s difficult to imagine a world without her. Yet, she feels profoundly present: in the forests she fought for, in the chimpanzees she helped us understand, in the children she believed in, and in all of us who learned to see the natural world differently because she asked us to slow down and truly look.

There are some people who change science. And then there are some people who change hearts. Goodall did both.

She showed us that one person, guided by patience, compassion, and belief, can shift how the world understands itself. She transformed our sense of belonging within the living world.

Many of us found our path because of her. Some of us picked up a camera because of her. Some of us stayed when it would have been easier to turn away, because she never did.

It’s in that spirit that I created The Nature of Hope: The World Jane Goodall Inspired, a print sale and collective offering from 100 photographers around the world who have dedicated their lives to witnessing and documenting this fragile, extraordinary planet. Together, these images remind us that even in a time of uncertainty, there’s still so much worth defending.

At its heart, this is a love letter to the living planet, and to the woman who taught us to pay attention to it. 

At a time when environmental loss can feel overwhelming, this project is an attempt to shift the narrative from despair to relationship. From distance to care. From witnessing collapse to witnessing what persists.

The prints in this collection are a reminder that the natural world is still here, still speaking, still asking us to show up for it.

Among them are intimate portraits of Goodall by Michael “Nick” Nichols, rare hand-signed prints she marked herself, and decades of conservation storytelling from photographers who have dedicated their lives to bearing witness.

One hundred percent of proceeds from Goodall’s signed prints will go to the Jane Goodall Institute and its Roots & Shoots program. The remaining prints support Roots & Shoots and Vital Impacts fellowships, helping a new generation of storytellers working at the intersection of art and conservation.

These images are meant to keep something alive in us: a sense of wonder, a sense of responsibility, a sense that we’re still connected to a world worth protecting.

I think about that connection often, especially after returning to Gombe last week, the place where Goodall began her work.

Nearly two decades ago, I walked into that forest for the first time. When I returned this time, the forest felt unchanged in the ways that matter most: the same deep green light, the same dense, breathing forest, and the same feeling that life is happening all around you whether you fully understand it or not.

But I was not the same. And then something happened that collapsed time entirely.

Goodall once told me about a chimpanzee named Fifi, one of the matriarchs whose life helped shape our understanding of chimpanzee society. In Gombe, she was a leader. A story carried forward.

On this return, I met Fifi’s daughter. And her granddaughter. Standing with them, I felt the passage of time not as absence, but as continuation. Life unfolding beyond any single moment or observer. Generations moving forward; memories carried in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

In that encounter, I understood something more clearly than ever before: What Goodall began was never confined to her lifetime. It’s still unfolding in the forest itself.

We must transform what we see into care. Into action. Into protection. Not as memory, but as momentum. Not as a loss, but as a responsibility.

This is the first Earth Month since her passing. And it asks something of us now. Not only remembrance, but participation.

Because what she built was never meant to end with her. It was meant to move through us. And perhaps most of all, to become a daily reminder that wonder still exists and that we are still capable of protecting it.

See more images from The Nature of Hope at www.vitalimpacts.org.