UN chief gets to
stroke "lucky chimp"
Celebrated naturalist Jane Goodall had a surprise for UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan after he named her a UN Messenger
of Peace: She asked him to pet her toy chimp.
"If you touch him, you become inspired," Goodall said of the
plush toy chimpanzee clutching a stuffed banana, which she said
had been petted by some two million people as she carried it on
her travels through more than 40 countries.
Annan quickly complied.
P"It's really wonderful to have you join us and add your voice
to the work we do," the UN leader told Goodall at a ceremony in
his UN offices, where he praised her as "a great
environmentalist (and) a great addition to our team." |
Celebrated naturalist Jane Goodall
had a surprise for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on April
16, 2002 after he named her a U.N. Messenger of Peace. |
"I am very proud. I shall do my best, as you know," said Goodall,
renowned for her groundbreaking studies of chimpanzees in the
wild.
Goodall was born in Britain and travelled to Tanzania's Lake
Tanganyika to study chimpanzees in 1960, at the age of 26.
She won worldwide attention by observing the chimps for long
periods of time alone in their isolated forest habitat.
She went on to found the Gombe Stream Research Center in
Tanzania in 1964 and the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife
Research, Education and Conservation in 1977 to support her
studies.
The mission of the institute (http://www.janegoodall.org)
is to improve the environment of all living things.
Other celebrities Annan has named Messengers of Peace include
three-time world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali,
Indian tennis star and actor Vijay Amritraj, Italian journalist
and human rights campaigner Anna Cataldi and actor Michael
Douglas.
Others are basketball legend Magic Johnson, Franco-Algerian
singer Enrico Macias, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, tenor
Luciano Pavarotti and author Elie Wiesel.
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