Unfortunately, I can only spend a few weeks a year in Gombe, and my life now is spent traveling around in various parts of the world, particularly North America, lecturing, talking to groups of schoolchildren, talking at universities, raising money, but perhaps, more importantly, at least for me, raising awareness. It is a symbolic name. Roots creep under the ground to make a firm foundation.
Shoots seem small, but to reach light can break through brick walls.
And we look at brick walls as all the problems we humans have inflicted on this poor old planet, ranging from desertification as a result of cutting down forests, soil erosion, the famine of much of the Third World, and then the overpopulation, the terrible pollution, the hole in the ozone layer, the predicted change in global climate and on top of all of those problems, there's human greed, and cruelty and crime and inner-city violence and drugs and war. It is a real mess. It is a program that involves the groups that participate in three kinds of hands-on activities. One, to make the environment around them better. Two, to show that they care about the human community around them.