Five months after the passing of conservation icon Jane Goodall in 2025, Mongabay met her grandson, Merlin Van Lawick, at the ChangeNOW 2026 environmental forum in Paris. It was a first trip to the French capital for Van Lawick, who was born, raised and lives today in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
He has been connected to the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), the conservation organization founded by his grandmother, for “as long as he can remember,” he says. Now, working for the institute’s conservation science and communications team, Van Lawick’s involvement has grown over the last several years. That’s even more so now that his grandmother has passed, he tells Mongabay.
Before starting his MBA at Arden University in the U.K., he spent a lot of time “learning through doing” in the field in Tanzania, connecting with communities and seeing firsthand the complexity of conservation work.
In this interview with Mongabay’s Juliette Chapalain, Van Lawick talks about his relationship with his grandmother, how he developed a strong interest in storytelling, and new ways of thinking to scale up impact in a quickly changing world, whether the obstacles are biodiversity loss or the difficulty NGOs face in obtaining funding. He also spoke of the challenges and hope of the JGI in engaging more communities and people in the “environmental mission.”
“Jane used to talk about a way to conceptualize hope. She would say: Imagine you’re in a tunnel, a dark tunnel. And at the end of the tunnel, there were these lights. This light symbolizes hope. It’s no good sitting there and just hoping that the light is going to come closer to you,” he says.
“What you have to do is start crawling towards that light. You have to get over obstacles, under obstacles, push against them. Do what you can to get to that light at the end of the tunnel. Hence, hope is rooted in action.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mongabay: First of all, Merlin, we would like to ask you: how do you feel?
Merlin Van Lawick: I think it’s been a very difficult year for my family and me, especially after losing our grandmother late last year. If you had honestly asked me to do this interview just two months ago, I wasn’t able to.
I’m doing a lot better now … taking it one day at a time. The world has to go on. We still have a lot to do with the mission, and we’re not going to give up.
We have to make this world a better place, and we all have to do our part. I’m going to do mine.
Mongabay: What gives you the strength to be here today at the environmental ChangeNOW forum in Paris, for the first time, and participate in diverse panels and conferences in the name of the Jane Goodall Institute?
Merlin Van Lawick: I believe a lot in the lessons that I learned from my grandmother. She always used to say that we all make a difference every day, and that we have to decide what sort of difference it’s going to be for us. She told me that if I decide to do something, I have to do it well, I have to do it to the best of my abilities.
I feel that I can’t just sit back and let things unfold the way they are. I understand that there is so much that one person can do, but I also realize that there are so many people out there who care for our world, our future, as much as I do.
And that gives me inspiration. That gives me hope. Knowing that our efforts, together, combined, can create a bigger impact.
We just need a critical number of people to change how they react to everything, to change their decisions, the way they affect one another.
And I think we have a chance. The window is small, but the opportunity is still there.
Mongabay: Is that why you’re stepping into the spotlight now?
Merlin Van Lawick: Yes, more than ever, I feel that I do have to. But one thing I want many people to understand is: no one can fill the gap that Jane has left. Jane was very special. No one is ever going to be her.
We were lucky to have a soul like hers. And we were lucky that she decided to invest her life the way she did. But I’m doing what I can because I feel there’s a part of me that can contribute to the mission.
