From Stephanie Feldstein, Population and Sustainability Program Director |
|
|
|
Twenty-five years ago, forestry experts recognized that the United States’ last remaining intact national forests — and the wildlife who call them home — need protection from the road building and logging that had already fragmented so much of the American landscape. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was born, and with it came protections for nearly 45 million acres of wild, unfragmented national forests and 70,000 miles of rivers and streams.
Roadless forests are essential to wildlife’s survival. Grizzly bears, wolverines, native salmon, and dozens of other endangered species depend on roadless stretches of forest to keep them safe from destructive human activities and increasing population pressure. But the Trump administration has released a plan to undo the Roadless Rule. If finalized it will open pristine public lands to road construction, commercial logging, and other development across 37 states — the single largest evisceration of public lands protections in U.S. history.
The Center has fought to keep these public lands wild and roadless before, and we’re defending them again — with your help.
Make your voice heard: Tell the U.S. Forest Service to keep roadless national forests protected.
Then read on to learn about shorebirds called red knots, how to watch our free Food Justice Film Festival online, and more. |
|
|
|
Crowded Planet: Our trail cameras captured footage of Cinco, the jaguar most recently spotted in Arizona. Cinco was first documented in the United States in late 2025 when he moved into the state from Mexico. His latest detection comes as border-wall construction is rapidly closing a transnational wildlife corridor used by jaguars and other wildlife.
|
|
|
Endangered Species Condoms Support Health Groups |
In the wake of federal funding cuts this year, including recent cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, the Center has distributed more than 20,000 free Endangered Species Condoms to health clinics, mutual aid groups, and social service organizations. Many of these organizations serve vulnerable populations who face the worst harms of climate and economic instability.
“Endangered Species Condoms were designed to get people talking about solutions to population pressure and the wildlife extinction crisis, but we’re glad we can step in where the government is failing and do our small part to help get condoms to those who need them,” said Malia Becker, an organizer at the Center. Since 2009 the Center has given away more than 1.5 million Endangered Species Condoms.
Here’s one thing you can do: Help distribute Endangered Species Condoms in your community and further our fight for reproductive freedom, sustainability, and a livable future for people and wildlife. |
|
|
|
Watch Our Free Food Justice Film Festival Online |
Join us for our seventh annual Food Justice Film Festival Oct. 22-25. This year’s festival features four powerful films highlighting the links between Indigenous seed systems and seed sharing, food sovereignty and cultural heritage, and creating a more sustainable food system by phasing out pesticide use and shifting toward agroecological farming. The free festival takes place online. This year’s lineup includes Seeds of Sovereignty, Seeding Change: Farming Beyond Neonics, Toxic Harvest: The Hidden Truth About Pesticides and Seed Is Life.
The week before the festival, we’ll also share a collection of prerecorded interviews with filmmakers, farmers, activists, and organizers.
Need help? Here’s how to sign up and watch.
Here’s one thing you can do: Mark your calendar to catch the festival and our prerecorded interviews. Until then you can visit our film festival website for past interviews. |
|
|
|
Simplify the Holidays: Swap, Fix, and Reuse |
|
|
|
Save the Date: A Just Food Transition Webinar |
The U.S. food system urgently needs a just transition from the factory farm model and the overproduction and high consumption of animal products to an equitable and sustainable food system that supports healthy and affordable plant-rich diets. Join the Center for a webinar on Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 3 p.m. ET/ noon PT that will introduce the U.S. Just Food Transition Roadmap and how this framework is being used to drive policy action.
We produced the roadmap in partnership with more than 20 labor, environmental, public health, animal welfare, agriculture, and food advocacy organizations. It outlines how we can work together to shift governments and public policy toward a food system that prioritizes people, animals, and the planet over corporate profits. The webinar will bring together a panel of experts to discuss how the roadmap can be implemented to achieve our shared vision.
We’ll include registration details in next month’s Pop X. We hope to see you there.
Here’s one thing you can do: Read the U.S. Just Food Transition Roadmap now. |
|
|
|
A New Video Explains How to Bring Back Refill |
Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are being driven in part by people’s ever-growing use of stuff. More than half of all greenhouse gas emissions are embodied in the things we consume. Our reliance on single-use plastic pollutes the environment and harms people and wildlife.
But what if something as simple as grabbing a drink didn’t create more waste? That’s the big question in The Story of Stuff’s new short animated film, Bring Back Refill: One Bottle, Many Lives, which envisions a future where reusable bottles are the norm, not the exception. Check it out and spread the word. Here’s one thing you can do: Learn more about how people’s reliance on single-use plastic pollutes the environment and seeps into our food system. |
|
|
|
Wildlife Spotlight: Red Knots |
Red knots are rusty-colored shorebirds famous for making astounding 19,000-mile round-trip migrations from the southern tip of South America to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. They rely on coastal stopover sites in the United States where they rest and gorge on food like horseshoe crab eggs to fuel their epic journeys.
But the decline of Atlantic horseshoe crabs — driven in part by the biomedical industry’s harvesting of the crabs for vaccine, drug and medical device testing — have decimated red knots. Their population has declined by 94% in the past 40 years — one of the steepest declines among shorebirds in North America. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected red knots as a threatened species in 2015, but they still haven’t received lifesaving protections for the places they live. That's why the Center sued the Service for failing to designate critical habitat for these incredible flyers.
|
|
| |
Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710
Tucson, AZ 85702
United States
|
|
|
|
|
