Join Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust for an online program on Wednesday, Jan. 29 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. with Ben Goldfarb, author of "Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet." Bill McKibben, environmentalist and founder of 350.org, reviewed Crossings as “Wide-ranging and absorbing...Brilliant.” The New York Times named Crossings one of the best books of 2023, and the book received both 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 people tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to humans, 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 will discuss the ecological harms wrought by transportation and the movement to redress them — and how people can create a better, safer world for all living beings.  

This program is free of charge, thanks to member support. Registration is required at coastalrivers.org/events.  

For more information, email info@coastalrivers.org or visit coastalrivers.org.