Will Wright in Conversation with Liz Fairbank and Joseph O’Connor
October 29 @ 6:00pm
Country Bookshelf is excited to welcome environmental historian Will Wright, author of the new book Borders of Biodiversity: How Gray Wolves, Monarch Butterflies, and Giant Sequoias Transformed Large Landscape Conservation.
Will will be joined in conversation by Liz Fairbank, road ecologist with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, and Joseph T. O’Connor, managing editor of Mountain Journal.
Tickets are not required for this event, but RSVPs are appreciated! Please RSVP by reserving a free general admission ticket at Eventbrite.
ABOUT BORDERS OF BIODIVERSITY
What happens to species when climate disruption causes suitable habitat within one country to move or vanish? In Borders of Biodiversity, Will Wright examines the histories of transnational conservation efforts to address the tension between a warming world in which living things are on the move and an increasingly walled world in which their movements are constrained. Focusing on the histories of three border-crossing species–gray wolves, monarch butterflies, and giant sequoias–from the 1850s to the present day, Wright reveals how nonstate actors like citizen scientists think beyond political borders and diplomatic traditions and find collaborations with fellow-minded conservationists by following nature beyond the nation-state.
The people at the heart of these intertwined stories in Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Indigenous nations of North America recognize that biota have their own forms of territoriality that should be respected and defended. Wright argues that the realities of climate change are fundamentally at odds with site-specific conservation, which follows the possessive logic of nation-building by bounding space to protect habitats when many ecologies do not naturally fit within traditional protected areas. Taken together, these stories make clear that conservation efforts must forge solidarity across borders for biological well-being–or face the extinction of shared species.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & SPEAKERS
Will Wright is an environmental historian whose work explores parks and protected areas, human-animal relationships, and the history of biology and evolution. He is author of the 2026 book Borders of Biodiversity: How Gray Wolves, Monarch Butterflies, and Giant Sequoias Transformed Large Landscape Conservation (UNC Press). Holding a Ph.D. from Montana State University, Will currently serves as assistant professor of history and environmental studies at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Liz Fairbank is a road ecologist with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, where she works on issues surrounding habitat connectivity and the impacts of roads on wildlife and nature. She has contributed to numerous road ecology research projects in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and other states. She is currently working on projects to advance wildlife crossing structures on US Highways 191 and 89 in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, among other projects.
Joseph T. O’Connor is Mountain Journal’s Managing Editor. He has an extensive background in multimedia storytelling including writing, editing, video broadcast and investigative journalism. Joe most recently served as Editor-in-Chief for Mountain Outlaw magazine and the Explore Big Sky newspaper in Big Sky, Montana. He has published work in several publications from the East Coast to California, including Newsweek, CNN, and Skiing magazine, among others.
