Wilfred Roe

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network’s
2025 Annual Eco Hero Award
Honoring Bill & Athena Steen & Roxanne Swentzell
Natural Building Pioneers

Sunday, March 23, 6:30-9pm, 2025
TICKETS $10, $20, & Friends of Eco Hero $100 (students & kids free)  

Location: Lobero Theatre
33 E Canon Perdido St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Tickets on Sale Now: Lobero Ticket Office

Reception follows in the Lobero Courtyard for all ticket holders


Santa Barbara Permaculture Network celebrates its 5th Annual Eco Hero Award, continuing to honor those making significant and positive change, this time honoring Natural Building pioneers, Bill & Athena Steen & Roxanne Swentzell, joining us in person on Sunday, March 23, 2025.

All three hail from the American Southwest, they are natural builders, authors and acclaimed artists, each one devoted to the beauty of the land, with a commitment to building with care of the earth as a priority.

Bill & Athena Steen are founders of the Canelo Project in Elgin, Arizona, defining their priorities as “sustainability and cross cultural relations”.  After building their first straw bale home for their family in the late 1980’s, they began conducting strawbale workshops in southern Arizona and Mexico.  They were later invited to teach around the world, sharing their skill and knowledge on how to build sustainably and affordably, using only earth, clay, sand & straw, materials all found easily in nature.  Athena’s heritage inspired her, growing up surrounded by clay artists & builders on the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico.  Bill also grew up in the southwest, becoming an author and professional photographer keen to capture the beauty of the land, and in time, the numerous projects they were creating.  Together they coauthored many natural building books including The Straw Bale House; Beautiful Straw Bale; The Small Straw Bale House, and The Canelo Project.  A family affair their sons Kalin & Benito document the Canelo Project with a video series, the Nito Project.

Roxanne Swentzell is a world renowned sculptor, ceramic artist, indigenous food activist, and the founder of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute.  In 1986 Roxanne returned with her two small children to live on the Santa Clara Pueblo in the high desert of New Mexico, building a strawbale house where the family together created a lush food forest within the homes enclosed earthen walls.  New to permaculture in those early days, Roxanne adopted some of its best design techniques that were culturally appropriate.  Later with other community members she embarked on an experimental journey of eating only foods available to their ancestors before the Spanish arrived in 1540.  This experiment led to a marked decrease in diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure with those participating.  To complement the experiment Roxanne coauthored The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors.  Today the Flowering Tree Institute has eight sites, including seed banks and intern residences and farms where workshops are held.  Roxanne’s artwork is displayed in museums and galleries worldwide, also at her own gallery, The Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallery, located at the Pojoaque Pueblo Poeh Cultural Center north of Santa Fe.

How we continue to build will affect the chances of survival for our grandchildren.  Modern buildings are often toxic to both the builders & the inhabitants, with many becoming chemically sensitive to products used.   Natural building, with materials like clay, straw, wood & stone are not only non-toxic, they are life enhancing, and if designed correctly, conserve heat & energy.  Natural building has joined the modern age with beautiful and functional structures, that are also less likely to burn in wildfires.

Please join us for a very special evening with Bill, Athena & Roxanne in person, with time for conversation and questions about Natural Building.  What is it? Why did it become their passion & lifework?  How is it different from Green Building?  What do they see as the future of natural building, especially for young people looking for a meaningful lifepath & career.  

The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award honors those individuals who have committed themselves to work in service of the planet and its inhabitants for more than thirty years, with actual solutions and concrete ways forward that benefit many, often on a global scale.  We encourage the next generation to come and participate in a robust Q&A, a part of every Eco Hero event, learn from our Eco Heroes, who have so much to share.

Past recipients of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award include John D. Liu; Paul Stamets & Louie Schwartzberg; John & Nancy Jack Todd, & Albert Bates.   We are honored to have Bill & Athena Steen, and Roxanne Swentzell as the recipients for the 2025 Eco Hero Award.  A reception follows in the Lobero courtyard for all ticket holders.  

The event takes place at the Lobero Theatre on Sunday, March 23, from 6:30 pm–9 pm, tickets on sale at Lobero Ticket Office (fees apply), 805-963-0761; more information, www.sbpermaculture.org.



A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org



Cosponsors:
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, Blue Sky Biochar, Bamboo DNA, Buena Onda, Teeccino, AH Juice, Community Environmental Council, SBCC Environmental Horticulture, Explore Ecology, Regenerative Landscape Alliance, Island Seed & Feed, Orella Ranch-Gaviota Giving’s, Santa Barbara Aquaponics, Sustainable World Radio, Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Foundation, Paradise Found, Quail Springs Permaculture, HourBooks, Mesa Harmony Garden,  Rincon-Vitova Insectaries, Building Health Matters, Central Coast Building Council, Voice Magazine & the Santa Barbara Independent.
[youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZGXZFTzuC8[/youtube][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6fkiU4THhM[/youtube][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmmcuQnUFQg[/youtube]

anta Barbara Permaculture Network presents

The State of Fire; Why California Burns
Talk & Book Signing
with Award Winning  Author Obi Kaufmann

                                             

Thursday, February 20, 6:30–8:30pm, 2025, FREE

Location:  Fe Bland Auditorium/BC Forum
SBCC West Campus, 800 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93109

Joined by a panel of Community Members &

special guest:

Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, Melinda Palacio




“The past, present, and future of fire are key in understanding  humanity’s power to upend the world”, Obi Kaufmann


Please join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network on Thursday, February 20, for a special evening with naturalist, illustrator, and award winning author Obi Kaufmann, sharing his timely book The State of Fire, Why California Burns.  

From the creator of The California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufmann shares a book of stewardship, resilience, and hope.  Fire is an essential part of California’s ecology and humans have been using it to shape the California landscape for thousands of years.  But today many Californians’ relationship to fire is primarily one of fear.  

Obi Kaufmann now asks: How do we live with fire?  What makes fire essential to a healthy and biodiverse Golden State, and how do we benefit from its teachings?

With the same solution-minded ethic as his earlier book The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource, Kaufmann presents fire as a force of regeneration rather than apocalypse. He considers the long history of ecological burns, the varied ways fire behaves across the state, and the lessons we can learn from California’s largest fires of recent decades.

Packed with Kaufmann’s signature watercolor maps and paintings, The State of Fire confronts one of California’s most pressing social and ecological challenges.  From the maelstrom and devastation fire often presents to humans and their communities, Kaufmann emerges to share a deepened love for the natural world—and a refreshingly hopeful vision of California’s future.

Born in California, Obi Kaufmann is an award-winning author and illustrator of best-selling books on California's ecology, biodiversity, and geography.  Based on decades of exploring the backcountry of the Golden State, artist-adventurer Kaufmann blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of living, connected systems in all of his books.  Kaufmann’s earlier books, The State of Water and The California Lands Trilogy present a comprehensive survey of California’s evolutionary past and its unfolding future.   A former student at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) connecting him to our region in earlier times, Obi Kaufmann now makes his home in Oakland, CA,  where he continues to work on future Field Atlases, and posts his essays on coyoteandthunder.com.
The free event takes place at the Fe Bland Auditorium/BC Forum on the Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) West Campus on Thursday, February 20,  6:30–8:30 pm. For more information, www.sbpermaculture.org,  margie@sbpermaculture.org, 805-962-257.

Community Panel Members include:
Ray Ford, Santa Barbara County backcountry author, photographer & journalist;  Betty Seaman, Natural Builder, Spirit Pine;  Cooper Lienhart, Nature’s Design & SLO Beaver Brigade;
Em Johnson Community Environmental Council (CEC) Director of Climate Programs



A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org

Cosponsors: Community Environmental Council (CEC); Santa Barbara Beaver Brigade; SBCC Environmental Horticulture, & Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network

Facebook Event Page

                                                                                     https://www.facebook.com/1600387994176548/






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17th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap

Sunday, January 26, 2025
11-4pm, Free - Rain or Shine!
Children Welcome

A celebration to bring seeds & people together

LOCATION:

Santa Barbara Community Arts Center (SBCAW)
631 Garden St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Join us for the 17th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap at the SB Community Arts Center (SBCAW). The free event takes place on Sunday, January 26, from 11-4pm, rain or shine, with both indoor & outdoor activities.

Hundreds attend every year, sharing seeds and knowledge with other backyard gardeners, plant lovers, beekeepers, farmers and more.  Come be a part of this seed saving movement, making sure that locally adapted seeds & plants are passed on to future generations.  Special speakers, children activities, food & live music!

Local groups will have plant and seed related exhibits & speakers throughout the day.  Seed saving is a fun and easy way to connect to the circle of life!

Once again we will honor a Local Food Hero, this year the award going to Mesa Harmony Garden.  Join us for an award ceremony at 1:30 pm.




Bring seeds, plants, cuttings, and garden knowledge to swap.

Don't have these?
Then come get seeds.
Seeds to sow.
Seeds to grow.
  Seeds to harvest.
Seeds to save and share next year.
Activities for all ages
Music that will have your toes tapping

Special Speakers throughout the day
A gathering of garden friends old and new.



An annual community event hosted by:
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network


Co-Sponsors: Island Seed & Feed, Blue Sky Biochar, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Explore Ecology, & Plant Good Seeds


Event Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/632203483488117/

More Info: Margie@sbpermaculture.org, (805) 962-2571


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Saying Goodbye, Honoring the Trees - Sat, Sept, 21, 2024
How blessed Santa Barbara has been with the Downtown Farmers Market
that started at the Cota St location more than 30 years ago, soon to be moved.

A commuter parking lot, with a mandate from a visionary City Council years ago to plant trees in all their commuter lots, 35 trees have graced & shaded farmers and shoppers here on Saturday mornings.

Santa Barbara has a wonderful city wide tree canopy, these trees among them.  
We honor and encourage all to say goodbye with a colorful blue ribbon

Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE https://www.facebook.com/events/1723455021736467/[/url  ][url=https://www.facebook.com/events/1723455021736467/]Facebook

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network presents

Creating Local Resilience with Regenerative Design:
Solar Powered Homes, Communities & Gardens

With special guest Leif Skogberg
 of Appreculture Design

Wed, August 7, 2024, 6-8 pm, Free
CEC Environmental Hub,
1219 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Leif Skogberg is a holistic sustainability educator, consultant, builder and designer, who shares how we can partner with both Nature and modern technology to create more beauty, abundance and resilience for our local communities.

A twenty-year veteran of resilient & regenerative design, including permaculture, working with hundreds of large and small residential & commercial property owners, he is the founder of Appreculture Design Institute and TurnKi Sustainability, providing integrated land use design and solar energy system consulting around the country.  Formerly a resident of Santa Barbara, while a student at SBCC he is remembered for initiating several groundbreaking organizations, including the Students for Sustainability Coalition, the SBCC Center for Sustainability, and more, later working for the City of Santa Barbara Environmental Services Division, and later the Ojai Foundation.  At home now in Wayne, New Jersey, he chairs the local Environmental Commission, and serves on the Wayne Master Plan Steering Committee.  Website: www.leifskogberg.com

A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
Cosponsored by the Community Environmental Council (CEC)
More info: www.sbpermaculture.org; margie@sbpermaculture.org

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network participates in
2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival
Come & Be Inspired!

Memorial Day Weekend: May 25 – 27
Free,  10am-6pm

Location: Old Mission Santa Barbara, 2201 Laguna St, SB, CA 93105


Join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network for our sponsored art square at the 38th Annual I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival that takes place every Memorial Day weekend at the Old Mission Santa Barbara.  Sponsored by the Children’s Creative Project, Santa Barbara Permaculture Network began participating in 2020 with Nature inspired art squares, with themes that included beaver & wetlands; the amazing world of fungi; coastal kelp forests; & the biologically alive soils beneath our feet.

Our 2024 theme shares the work of ecological design pioneer John Todd and his “Living Machines” that work with nature using only sunlight, plants, & microorganisms to clean & restore waterways & oceans from toxic waste created by human activity. In 2023 John Todd was honored with the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award.  

The I Madonnari Festival is special as it gives the public an opportunity to watch the artists in action, sometimes with a chance to talk with them.  For the second year, local artist Kristen Sell will be the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network featured artist.

The festival also has music, food, and visitors from around the world attending, a chance meet new friends at the tables provided on the Mission lawn.

Our art square is usually located below the Old Mission steps, on the right side as you face the Mission.  Hope to see you there!







Learn More:



FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

https://www.facebook.com/events/816877973649398



RESOURCES:

2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival

https://ccp.sbceo.org/about-the-festival

3rd Echo Hero Award John and Nancy Todd

https://www.sbpermaculture.org/events.html#event65

John and Nancy Todd

Ecological Design - John Todd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8IRbYerwxM

Ocean Arts

https://www.oceanarksint.org/

Kristin Sell Chalk Mural Artist

https://www.instagram.com/kriimadstensellsart

Soil Web Magic Mural MOVIE  2023 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival

ttps://vimeo.com/836723101

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network

www.sbpermaculture.org ,https://www.facebook.com/sbpermaculture

[vimeo]ttps://vimeo.com/836723101[/vimeo] 2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network presents
2024 Eco Hero Award Honoring Albert K. Bates
Biochar Pioneer/Global Ecovillage Network UN Delegate/Author/Permaculture Teacher & Designer



Santa Barbara Permaculture Network celebrates its fourth Annual Eco Hero Award, honoring Albert K. Bates, Environmental Lawyer, Author, Right Livelihood Award recipient, UN Climate Conference Delegate, and Biochar Pioneer.

A perennial good-natured optimist, but hard-core realist, Albert Bates has been an advocate for the Earth and its ecosystems for over 50 years.

Like many of his generation, he gravitated towards living in an intentional community, joining The Farm ecovillage in Tennessee in 1972, after trekking (Thru-Hiking) north to south, the entire Appalachian Trail.  In his years at The Farm ecovillage, he learned many practical skills, working as a horse farmer, mason, solar technician, illustrator, typesetter, flour miller, riding instructor, mushroom grower, paramedic, councilman and schoolteacher.

Albert served on the executive board of Plenty-USA, a not for profit organization founded by members of The Farm, that put small water, energy, and health-care systems into underserved communities around the world.  In 1980, The Farm and Plenty were awarded the first Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel Peace prize, for “caring, sharing and acting with and on behalf of those in need at home and abroad.”  Plenty supports economic self-sufficiency, cultural integrity and environmental responsibility in partnership with community groups and organizations in Central America, the U.S., the Caribbean, and Africa.

With Plenty, Albert also founded the Natural Rights Center and launched a lawsuit to end atomic power on human rights grounds that went before twenty-two federal judges and four times to the United States Supreme Court.  Bates also challenged uranium mining in the Black Hills and the first strike MX Missile deployment in the Dakotas.  He also challenged a State law retroactively disenfranchising all felons, winning a State Supreme Court order that restored the right to vote to more than 200,000 citizens in Tennessee.

As a young lawyer, Albert defended rural Tennessee residents from some of the most dangerous toxins imaginable that were being dumped by agrochemical companies into the Knox Aquifer, a primary source of citizens drinking water.  Bringing in experts and showing statistically high cancer rates by county, he won a statewide ban on fracking and deep well injection.

While researching that case, Albert began a journey of learning about how climate change might affect water rights in the future, which led to his fifth book, Climate in Crisis: The Greenhouse Effect and What We Can Do (1990) with a foreword by Al Gore.  Shaken by all he learned, he retired from the practice of law, and as an antidote, took up forest mushroom farming with a mail-order catalog called Mushroompeople, also later discovering permaculture.

Later forays to the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon introduced him to terra preta (dark earth) and biochar, exploring biochar’s potential for mitigating climate change and improving soil quality where implemented.  Biochar is modeled after an ancient practice found in the Amazonian basin, where indigenous people used it with great success for centuries to create rich fertile soils, out of their typically thin infertile tropical soils.

In 1994, Bates founded the Farm Ecovillage Training Center and in 1995 co-founded the Global Ecovillage Network.  Both were outshoots of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology, a nonprofit scientific research, development and demonstration organization, with projects on six continents including resettling Ukrainian refugees with the Green Road project, and regaining food sovereignty for Palestine. He has taught hundreds of courses in permaculture, natural building, ecovillage design, and climate solutions in more than 60 countries, including training certified permaculture instructors in China and Cuba.

Albert has been an ongoing delegate to the United Nations Climate Conferences (COP), representing the Global Ecovillage Network, ProNatura, and the International Biochar Initiative.

Albert is the prolific author of more than 20 books including Climate in Crisis; The Paris Agreement; The Biochar Solution; Transforming Plastics; The Dark Side of the Ocean; Plagued; and coauthor with Kathleen Draper of Burn: Igniting a New Carbon Drawdown Economy to End the Climate Crisis (in German as Cool Down). His latest book is Retropopulationism: Clawing Back a Stable Planet from Eight Billion and Change (2023).

Albert will be attending the International Biochar Conference in Sacramento, CA in February 2024.

The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award honors those individuals who have committed themselves to work in service of the planet and its inhabitants for more than thirty years, with actual solutions and concrete ways forward that benefit many, often on a global scale, while demonstrating pathways forward for future generations.  Past recipients of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award include John D. Liu; Paul Stamets & Louie Schwartzberg; and John & Nancy Jack Todd.   We are honored to have Albert Bates join us in person as the recipient for the 2024 Eco Hero Award.  A reception follows in the Lobero courtyard for all ticket holders.
Albert Bates Eco Hero 2424 Lobero Threater

16th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap
Sunday, January 28, 2024
11-4pm, Free - Rain or Shine!

celebration to bring seeds & people together

LOCATION

Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW)
631 Garden Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org

Join us for the 16th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap!  The event takes place at the Santa Barbara Community Arts Center (SBCAW) in downtown Santa Barbara, with both indoor and outdoor space, rain or shine.


Honoring of our 2024  Local Food Leslie Person Ryan Hero will be at 1:30 pm at !6th SB Annual Seed Swap see below for writeup

Hundreds attend this free event every year sharing seeds and knowledge with other backyard gardeners, plant lovers, beekeepers, farmers and more.  Come be a part of this seed saving movement, making sure locally adapted seeds & plants are passed on to future generations.  Free seeds offered to help gardeners get started.  Local groups will have seed & plant related exhibits.  Live music, and kids activities throughout the day.  

Once again we will honor a Local Food Hero, this year the award goes to Leslie Person Ryan of Sweet Wheel Summerland Farm.  Join us for an award ceremony at 1:30 pm.

Bring seeds, plants, cuttings, and garden knowledge to swap.
Don't have these? Then come get seeds. Seeds to sow, seeds to grow, seeds to harvest. Seeds to save and share next year.
Activities for all ages.
Free Face Painting
Music that will have your toes tapping.
Plant and seed-related exhibits from local groups
Special speakers throughout the day.
A gathering of garden friends old and new.
Seed saving is a fun and easy way to connect to the circle of life.


A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network



Co-Sponsored by Island Seed & Feed, Blue Sky Biochar, Explore Ecology, & Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.



More Info: Margie@sbpermaculture.org, (805) 962-2571

Follow us on Facebook

Seeds, they are our past, they are our future.  In past times, they were skillfully adapted to climate and location.
Join us as we encourage our community to save and grow out seeds specific to our own climate and place, while honoring our ancestors gift & legacy.

2024 Local Food Hero  Leslie Person Ryan of Sweet Wheel Summerland Farm
Leslie Person Ryan of Sweet Wheel Summerland Farm has been committed to building food resilience in her community for many years.  Starting with her Sweet Wheel Farm Cart selling local, organic, in season produce & other goods, with a large percentage donated & delivered to vulnerable community members. After a cataclysmic fire & debris flow event in 2018 leaving Summerland completely isolated & without food for two weeks, Leslie determined Summerland was a “food desert” and needed its own farm to be food secure.  Leslie led a phenomenally successful fundraising campaign to purchase a six-acre farm, with an intention to ultimately grow enough to feed everyone in the community, while demonstrating & educating all ages about best regenerative farming practices, including encouraging young women to consider farming.  Leslie is a passionate heirloom seed advocate, known for the beautiful non-GMO multi-color corn varieties she grows on the farm.

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network presents

Booksigning & Talk CROSSINGS -Ben Goldfarb
How Road Ecology is Shaping The Future of our Planet

TUESDAY OCT 24 6:30-8:30pm
Santa Barbara Community Council (CEC) Environmental Hub FREE
1219 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Road ecology is the study of how roads and other forms of transportation infrastructure affect nature

An eye-opening and witty account of the global ecological transformations wrought by roads, from the award-winning rauthor of Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter


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 entirely alien forces of death and disruption .

In Crossings, environmental journalist     Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roads
Creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates invasive plants hitch rides in tire treads road salt contaminates lakes and rivers and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat.        

yet road ecologists are also seeking to blunt the destruction through innovative solutions. Goldfarb meets with conservationists building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads engineers deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests animal rehabbers caring for Tasmania’s car-orphaned wallabies and community organizers working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities.Today as our planet’s road network continues to grow exponentially the science of road ecology has become increasingly vital. Written with passion and curiosity Crossings is a sweeping spirited and timely investigation into how humans have altered the natural world—and how we can create a better future for all living beings          




A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org
Cosponsors- CEC Community Environmental Council  and Sustainable
World Radio RESOURCES

FACEBOOK PEVENT PAGE https://www.facebook.com/855792232796516/

RESOURCES

Ben Goldfarb website
https://www.bengoldfarb.com/

How Roads Have Transformed the Natural World
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-roads-have-transformed-the-natural-world-180982809/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=952023&utm_content=new

PODCAST Fresh Air interviews Ben Goldfarb How Roads & Highways Affect Wildlife
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1197954444/fresh-air-draft-09-26-2023


Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
https://annenberg.org/initiatives/wallis-annenberg-wildlife-crossing/

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is a public-private partnership of monumental scope that has leveraged the expertise and leadership of dozens of organizations and institutions to protect and restore wildlife habitats in Southern California.

EXCERPT Interview

Crossings’ details how roads impact wildlife in Washington and beyond

What is road ecology? Why does it matter?

Road ecology is the study of how roads and other forms of transportation infrastructure affect nature. And I think the reason that it matters is that roads are among the worst forms of ecological disruption that we inflict on nature. We take them for granted because they’re such a part of our daily lives. We don’t think about them in the same terms that we think about climate change or dams on rivers or poaching wildlife.

How did you get interested in road ecology?

In the fall of 2013, I was working as a reporter writing about habitat connectivity and wildlife in the Northern Rockies — Montana, Wyoming, British Columbia and Alberta. I got a tour of a wildlife overpass on Highway 93, north of Missoula on the Flathead Indian Reservation. And it was just getting on top of this old wildlife overpass, this bridge that was specially built to allow grizzly bears and elk and other creatures to safely navigate this really busy federal highway. And there’s just something so beautiful about that — the fact that humans were going to such great lengths to undo some of the harms we’d inflicted.

I found that really powerful and moving. I also just found it to be a great intellectual challenge. We’re so accustomed to building infrastructure for ourselves. How do we build infrastructure for animals? How do you know what kind of overpass or underpass a deer or a cougar or a coyote might find appealing? We have to think like an animal in some ways.



What are some of the assumptions you had about road ecology going into the book, and what were some of the biggest things that surprised you?

I think that the primary assumption that I had going in was geographical. The first wildlife overpasses and underpasses were built in Western Europe — France, Germany, Switzerland. Then there were great examples in Canada and the western U.S. I sort of thought this is primarily something that the Western world is doing and maybe there’s some export of knowledge to other countries as well.

But the more that I read, I realized there’s just incredible road ecology movements in places like Brazil and India, and Costa Rica and Kenya. These are places that are engineering wonderful endemic solutions to their own conflict between roads and nature. One of my favorite examples is in India. They’re building this new highway through a tiger sanctuary, and they just put the entire highway up on pilings. They elevated the whole freeway above the forest so the tigers can walk under this highway undisturbed. That’s more radical than anything we’ve done in North America to accommodate wildlife.

You’ve got so many cool stories in here — frogs and turtles being ushered across roads by volunteer hands, a wildlife crossing for cougars in California, citizen roadkill reporting networks. In many ways, it’s a book about the people trying to correct our mistakes. What were some of the solutions to our road problems that seemed the most promising to you?

I’ve already talked a bit about wildlife crossings, but that’s the first one that comes to mind. There are some fantastic examples of that all over the Northwest. Most Washingtonians have probably driven I-90 and seen the crossing up on Snoqualmie Pass. There’s that very visible, conspicuous overpass that you drive by, but there are many other underpasses that are already being used very readily by elk and black bears and coyotes and all kinds of creatures. Those structures also have fences along the interstate so that the animals stay off the highway and are directed by those fences to the crossings.

One important thing to note about them is that they’re very, very cost-effective. People see this big bridge over the highway and think, “Oh man, what a huge expenditure.” I think that [Snoqualmie Pass] overpass was something like $6 million. But because those crossing structures are preventing so many wildlife-vehicle collisions, they’re often paying for themselves really quickly.