Jane Goodall, the British scientist renowned for her work on African primates, woke up an environmental conference at the French presidential palace by imitating the wild call of a tropical chimpanzee. "As usual, I find myself in the position of representing the animal kingdom in a gathering like this," the 72-year-old Goodall told the conference Friday, which coincided with the release of the UN's latest review of climate change.
"To do that most effectively, I propose to bring into this room the voice of the animals I've been learning about for the past 45 years.
"So here is the greeting of the chimpanzee of Tanzania," Goodall said, before launching into a long, modulated cry. "That says hello," she quipped, to loud applause from the assembly.
"We all enjoyed the chimp cry very much," French President Jacques Chirac, who was hosting the event at the Elysee Palace in Paris, told her afterwards.
The British primatologist is considered one of the 20th centuries leading scientists for her work with chimpanzees in the Gombe reserve in Tanzania, and the discoveries she made observing them and their social behaviour.
One of a panel of international scientists and experts gathered for the Paris conference, Goodall pleaded for a concerted global effort to preserve biodiversity and combat the effects of climate change.
"We must stop stealing from our children and we must stop now," she said.
The Paris conference aims to build support for the creation of a United Nations environment agency, with more far-reaching powers and greater means than the existing United Nations Environment Programme.
The assessment released on Friday by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said global warming was almost certainly caused by humans, and carbon pollution disgorged this century would disrupt the climate system for a thousand years to come.
