We say goodbye.

Iván András Bojár, the founder and leader of 10 Million Trees, bid farewell to the person who taught us to love the nature that surrounds us with the following personal thoughts.

FAREWELL, WONDERFUL JANE GOODALL! 🖤🐒🌳❤️🖤

We were barely a few weeks old, just as the team that has now grown into the vast 10 Million Trees was beginning to take shape, when we heard the news that Jane Goodall was coming to Hungary. 

Our newly acquired friend, András Kádár, the head of the local organization of the wonderful and influential British ethologist and researcher (Jane Goodall Institute), did everything he could to arrange a meeting between Jane and me. I will be forever grateful to him. 

I am also grateful to life for allowing me to be there on that early day, watching Jane’s hand as we planted a sapling together with many others on the side of Sas Hill. 

This event created the opportunity for me to get to know Jane better, as she placed a confirming seal on our newly launched venture with a hug. 

I cannot deny that even today, feeling the shoulder of the small, fragile woman in my arms, the power of that gesture reached far, very far. It still resonates today. And with today, we can even pledge that it will continue to resonate until we reach the end of our commitment. 

After the planting, Jane retreated to a clearing, and we, along with the other guests, gathered around her as she delivered a speech in soft tones. In her introduction, she greeted us with chimpanzee-like hoots, explaining that this is how her friends, with whom she has maintained a close relationship for seven decades, express themselves. 

It was both peculiar to hear a discreet elderly lady speaking in chimpanzee in the middle of bustling Budapest and simultaneously a message from Africa, the message of the rainforests, the message of the nature that Jane witnessed in her youth, against which she has raised her voice thousands of times, and whose importance she taught us, the consuming, competing, voracious Europeans, to appreciate. 

A few days ago, just a week ago, we stood here in Budapest again, in St. Stephen’s Park, as we ceremoniously closed our Volunteer Water Donation campaign this year. (https://www.facebook.com/10millioFa/posts/pfbid02G4ZDWGW1PpyRGhLp9XEoaMbv8R8xMujSETdZZJKSX5Kfg4C7VUgFWVwiHYgZWDkrl) András was with us again this time, and once more, Jane’s current message was with him. In the brilliant late autumn sunlight, with the wind caressing the leaves of the trees we have kept alive, Jane’s voice resonated once again. 

This time it came from a recording, as her peace message had only arrived here a mere hour or two earlier, if I am not mistaken, again from Africa, where she was staying during those days. 

We stood silently in the roaring, noisy city, but for a moment, silence and tranquility settled in our hearts. 

A true and sincere voice spoke to us, which is always striking when authentic. Behind every word of Jane’s lies life experience, distilled wisdom, and knowledge, and this can leave a mark, burning into the one who hears it. 

In the coming years, books, films, and numerous conferences will discuss who he was. Alongside David Attenborough, he was a prominent ambassador of the twentieth century, who saw the world relatively intact, who witnessed its degradation, how we, like a swarm of locusts, consume and deplete our life conditions. He mobilized incredible energies and had a tremendous impact on humanity. 

Now that Facebook is filled with photos of those who had the chance to meet him, it is evident how far his values have reached, even in this small and distant country, and through those individuals, to many more. Years later, I was incredibly fortunate to meet him again in Budapest. 

I don’t know how chimpanzees say goodbye when they experience a great loss, but now, if I could, I would bid farewell in a way worthy of him, using his voice, and I would hoot: 

Goodbye, wonderful Jane Goodall! 

Thank you for being with us!

Iván