Image source, Chris DELMAS / AFP

Jane Goodall was already immortalised by toy companies Lego and Barbie.

In 2022, the Barbie Inspiring Women Series paid tribute to Goodall's legacy, creating a doll of her. The doll depicts Goodall wearing khaki and binoculars.

The Barbie is paired with chimpanzee David Greybeard - one of the most important chimps that she studied, as he led her to realisation that the apes used tools that they made.

Lego also have a toy dedicated to Goodall.

Theirs is a mini figure showing her among trees, surrounded by chimps. It was also released in 2022, in commemoration of International Women's Day.

Image source, Getty Images

Well-known conservation and animal rights charities have paid tribute to Goodall.

Tricia Croasdell, CEO of World Animal Protection, says Goodall had been a "force for good". He recalls that she once said "the least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves." He says that she has paved the way for us all.”

Commenting on Goodall's passing, the RSPCA's Thomas Schultz-Jagow says that "working within what was then a male-dominated sector in the 60s and 70s, Jane’s success as a female scientist was an inspiration to generations of women who followed in her footsteps." The charity awarded Goodall a lifetime achievement award in 2018.

Finally, Greenpeace UK's Will McCallum says she charmed the audience at Glastonbury this year "with her vast knowledge of our primate cousins' lives". He adds: "She became a tireless advocate for the protection of wildlife and forests, inspiring millions to act."

English naturalist and photographer Chris Packham appeared on the BBC News Channel a few moments ago.

He says Goodall was "revolutionary" and "remarkable".

Speaking to BBC News, he says she was especially notable as she was working as a young woman in the 1950s and 60s without a degree, so "she was up against it".

"She was brave enough and bold enough to report on the things that she knew and came to understand because of that close proximity," he explains.

She was "immersed right in the heart of these animals", he says.

Up until her death, she was still speaking in a "calm, calculated, deliberate way... to make sure that we can do everything we can to protect life on earth".

"She loved life, she was fascinated by life," he says, which was an "enormous motivating force" for her work. In her later life, Packham says she worked towards advocating against climate change as times and issues changed.

Of his own career, he says he had put Goodall on a "pedestal" and describes her as a "hero".

Her loss "is a tragedy".

Image source, Justin Trudeau/X

We've just received a tribute from former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In a post on X he says he is "heartbroken" to hear she has died.

His message continues: "She was a pioneer whose research and advocacy reshaped our understanding of the natural world.

"Her wisdom and compassion will live on in every act of conservation. All of us who were so greatly inspired by her will miss her deeply."

Another remarkable feat that Dr Jane Goodall accomplished was her PhD from the University of Cambridge.

At the time, she was the eighth person to be admitted to Cambridge as a PhD candidate without an undergraduate degree.

She gained the PhD in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, in the 1960s.

Goodall went on to become an honorary fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge University.

She received almost 50 honorary degrees in her lifetime.

Image source, Duffy-Marie Arnoult/WireImage

We're now receiving some reaction to Dr Goodall's death.

She was a Messenger of Peace for The United Nations, who say in a statement that "the UN family mourns the loss of Dr Jane Goodall".

"The scientist, conservationist and UN Messenger of Peace worked tirelessly for our planet and all its inhabitants, leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and nature."

Image source, Stefan Rousseau/AFP via Getty Images

Dr Jane Goodall also received a damehood, the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), in 2004.

The award was for her pioneering work as an ethologist and conservationist and was presented by King Charles III at Buckingham Palace when he was Prince of Wales.

Goodall's damehood was in recognition of her decades of study on chimpanzees and her global efforts in conservation and environmental education.

She also received other international awards like Japan's Kyoto Prize in 1990 as well as a Unesco Gold Medal Award and France's Legion d'Honneur both given to her in 2006.

Image source, Getty Images

Earlier this year, Goodall received America's highest civilian honour from outgoing President Joe Biden.

She was awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House during a ceremony alongside Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour, U2 frontman Bono and billionaire George Soros.

A military aide read out: "From war-torn England to the jungles of Tanzania, Dr Jane Goodall’s childhood passion for animals led her to explore wildlife in Africa.

"Her ground-breaking discoveries of chimpanzees challenged scientific convention, reshaped conservation methods, and redefined our understanding of the connection between humans, animals, and the environment we share.

"Jane’s activism, vision, and message of hope have mobilised a global movement to protect the planet.

"Above all, she has taught us that when we search for humanity in the natural world around us, we discover it within ourselves."

In our next post, we'll take a closer look at some of the other accolades she achieved throughout career.

Image source, Getty Images

In her last interview with the BBC, Dr Jane Goodall warned the "sixth great extinction is happening".

"With her signature shawl draped over her shoulders and silver hair pulled back from her face, Jane Goodall exudes serenity - even over our slightly blurry video call," BBC presenter Victoria Gill wrote of the interview.

At the time, in November 2024, she was on her speaking tour. “I am a little bit exhausted,” she admitted, listing off the next cities she was visiting: Berlin, Geneva, Paris.

But what drove her to speak to the BBC was to discuss the protection of forests.

“The more we can do to restore nature and protect existing forests, the better.” She had planted almost two million trees in the five years to this point.

The activist wanted to highlight the threat that deforestation poses to our climate.

“Trees have to grow to a certain size before they can really do their work,” she said.

“If we don't get together and impose tough regulations on what people are able to do to the environment - if we don't rapidly move away from fossil fuel, if we don't put a stop to industrial farming, that's destroying the environment and killing the soil, having a devastating effect on biodiversity - the future ultimately is doomed.”

• Read more about the last conversation Goodall had with the BBC

Image source, Getty Images

In March 1964, Dr Jane Goodall married Dutch National Geographic photographer Hugo van Lawick at a ceremony at the Chelsea Old Church in west London.

The couple had met in Tanzania where Goodall was studying chimpanzees. They were married for a decade and had one child, a son called Hugo Eric Louis.

He was born in 1967 and spent his early years at the Gombe Stream research site in Tanzania, where Goodall studied chimpanzees and while van Lawick documented her work.

Earlier this year, Goodall told Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast the relationship "ended gradually".

“He had to go on with his career and he got some money to do films on the Serengeti, and I couldn't leave Gombe,” she said. “I had to stay … I couldn't leave Gombe, and so it slowly drifted apart. And it was sad.

"I definitely wish we could have carried on with that marriage because it was a good one.”

One year after her divorce from van Lawick, Goodall married Tanzanian parks director Derek Bryceson, who left her widowed in 1980.

Image source, Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Bloomberg Philanthropies

Jane Goodall was on a stage in New York city just a week before her death.

She was interviewed about her extensive career and the work of her institute at a global forum.

Two days later, on 26 September, she appeared on a Wall Street Journal podcast.

She was on a speaking tour at the time of her death, and was due to speak on 3 October in California.

Her calendar says she was then scheduled to go to Washington DC on 7 October.

The website says her mission involved "building an international community of action fueled by hope is at the center of what drives Dr. Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute".

Image source, Getty Images

As a child growing up in London, Jane Goodall said she became fascinated by animals after reading Dr Doolittle. Her first research trip to the jungles of Tanzania was in 1960, when she was in her mid-twenties.

It was to be the beginning of a sixty-year study of wild chimpanzees. She learned to communicate with them – the embracing, playing and patting – even the kisses.

She was the first person to record witnessing an animal using a tool; a male chimpanzee digging termites out of a mound with a stick.

Until then, it was thought only humans were intelligent enough. Her observations would shape the future of evolutionary science. In 1965 she made the front cover of National Geographic.

She became an activist, working to improve the treatment of chimpanzees and to educate millions of people around the world about the environment. A native American tribe gave her the name, “sister of mother earth.”

We've just seen a statement from the Jane Goodall Institute:

They say: "The Jane Goodall Institute has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 1, 2025, that Dr Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute has passed away due to natural causes. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States."

Image source, CBS via Getty Images

Dr Jane Goodall was best known as a primatologist who revolutionised the study of wild chimpanzees.

When Jane Goodall first went to Africa to study chimpanzees at the age of 26, she had no formal scientific training - but still managed to win the trust of the primates, leading to groundbreaking observations.

Her discoveries would not just revolutionise our understanding of animal behaviour but reshape the way we define ourselves as human beings.

Although she was just 26 years old at the time, Jane Goodall had long dreamt of studying and living with animals.

"Apparently, from the time I was about one and a half or two, I used to study insects, anything, and this gradually evolved and developed and grew and then I read books like Dr Dolittle and Tarzan, then it had to be Africa that was my goal," she told the BBC's Terry Wogan on his talk show in 1986.

Ethologist Jane Goodall has died aged 91, her institution says.

This is a breaking news story, we'll bring you more on this as we get it.