This week on The Write Question, in anticipation of her tour in Montana (Missoula, Bozeman, and Livingston), and in anticipation of NPR’s Climate Solutions Week, host Lauren Korn speaks with Hillary Rosner, author of Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World (Patagonia Books).
About the book:
What if saving our home planet starts with giving other species space to roam? How can we reshape our human-built landscapes to serve both people and wildlife?
These are the questions that Hillary Rosner attempts to answer in Roam, an urgent quest to figure out how to stitch our fragmented planet back together. It’s about the people trying to reconstruct landscapes where animals can once again move freely, as they did for millennia. It’s about reconnecting Earth so that wild species and natural systems have room to adapt and thrive. It’s about seeing wildlife as the guides we need to lead us to adapt to climate change.
Humans have always altered the landscapes around us; in some ways, it’s part of what defines us as a species. But since the middle of the last century, we’ve changed the Earth on an overwhelming scale. Our infrastructure, our hunger for resources, our methods of farming, traveling and living—all these have rendered our planet inhospitable for the other species that live here. As a result, all over the globe, animals are stranded—by roads, fences, drainage systems, industrial farms, and cities. They simply cannot move around to access their daily needs. Yet as climate change reshapes the planet in its own ways, many creatures will, increasingly, have to move in order to survive.
About Hillary:
Hillary Rosner is a journalist who covers environmental issues. She worked on Al Gore’s runaway bestseller An Inconvenient Truth and has reported on the environment from across the U.S. and around the world for publications including National Geographic, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, Men’s Journal, Scientific American, bioGraphic, Undark, Nautilus, Mother Jones, Popular Science, High Country News, The Boston Globe, The Denver Post, OnEarth, Audubon, Smithsonian, Slate, and Grist. Her work has won several awards, including two AAAS-Kavli Awards and others from the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. She has also been a Ted Scripps Fellow, a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and an Alicia Patterson Fellow and is a frequent speaker at workshops and seminars on science communication.
Hillary Rosner recommends:
Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller by Miriam Horn (Penguin Random House)
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijuis (W. W. Norton & Company)
The Nature Fix by Florence Williams (W. W. Norton & Company)
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger (HarperCollins)
Is a River Alive? By Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Company)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World by Hillary Rosner (Patagonia Books)
Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb (W. W. Norton & Company); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Ben here!
Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries That Change How We Think about Animals by Christopher J. Preston (The MIT Press); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Christopher (and Justin Angle) here!
The Crazies: The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West by Amy Gamerman (Simon & Schuster); listen to part one and part two of Lauren’s conversation with Amy!
Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie (W. W. Norton & Company)
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijuis (W. W. Norton & Company); and this article by Michelle in bioGraphic
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger (HarperCollins)
A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown (Timber Press)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Bookworks of Whitefish, offering new books of all genres, stationery, and puzzles. Open 11AM to 6PM Monday through Saturday. Located in downtown Whitefish, Montana, in the Third & Spokane Building.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
