Earth Day Google doodle delivers hopeful message from Dr. Jane Goodall

To celebrate Earth Day, Google recruited renowned ethologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall to deliver a message of hope about our planet’s future.

“Every single individual matters, every single individual makes some impact on the planet every single day, and we have a choice as to what kind of difference we’re going to make,” says Dr. Goodall in a video produced for Google’s Earth Day doodle.

Born in 1934, Goodall says she thinks she was born loving animals, and that her whole childhood was “… animals, animals, animals.” It was her passion for animals that led Goodall to Gombe, Tanzania, where she began studying chimpanzees.

As Google notes in a blog post highlighting today’s doodle, Goodall’s research with chimpanzees “rocked the scientific world and redefined the relationship between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.”

Created in partnership with The Goodall Institute, the doodle was developed by a team that included an art, production and engineering staff. The lead doodler on the project, Matthew Cruickshank, says his goal was to bring Goodall’s stories of childhood, chimpanzees, rainforests and wisdom to life.

“The mandate was clear — the Earth is a miracle and we all have a duty to care for it,” says Cruickshank about his time interviewing and working with Goodall to create the doodle.

Earth Day, started in 1970, has become a movement, inspiring millions of people from around the world to work together and create a sustainable future. As Dr. Goodall tells Google, “There is still so much in the world worth fighting for. So much that is beautiful, so many wonderful people working to reverse the harm, to help protect species and their environments.”