With Author Ben Goldfarb
It was a treat to have author Ben Goldfarb with us once again, this time for an online presentation on the topic of his book Crossings: How road ecology is shaping the future of our planet. Crossings was named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times and is a recipient of the Sierra Club’s Rachel Carson Award and the Banff Mountain Book Competition Grand Prize.
Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as alien forces of death and disruption. More than a million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone; creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat.
Today road ecologists are seeking to blunt that destruction through innovative solutions. Conservationists are building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers are deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, and community organizers are working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities. In this online talk, Ben Goldfarb discusses the ecological harms wrought by transportation and the movement to redress them — and how we can create a better, safer world for all living beings.
Recorded on January 29, 2025 in Damariscotta, Maine.
