Conversations: The Roadless Rule with Ben Goldfarb
Last June, the U.S. the Secretary of Agriculture announced that the Trump administration intends to repeal something called the “Roadless Rule”—a policy implemented in 2001, which protected some of the Forest Service’s wildest lands from logging, mining, and road-building.
Author Ben Goldfarb examined the impacts of road and roadless areas in his 2023 book, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet. We talk with Ben about why our Forest Service lands already have so many roads, and what building more would actually mean for wildlife and for people.
Resources and Links
Check out Ben’s book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, which won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
Ben’s most recent book Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, was named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times and received the Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing and the Banff Book Competition’s Grand Prize.
