Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist, is launching Trees for Jane on Tuesday, joining a global campaign to combat climate change by planting a trillion trees by 2030.

Goodall, a longtime National Geographic Explorer, made it clear that planting is just one aspect of Trees for Jane; there’s something even more important. “The key is protecting existing forest because those big trees already have stored CO2,” she said in a National Geographic interview.

Goodall, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, feels a strong “spiritual connection” to trees, she said in a Zoom conversation from her family home in southern England. “Trees absorb carbon dioxide. They give us oxygen. They help to make rain. So they are a gift.”

In A Trillion Trees,