ONLINE: Winter Audubon Talk: Saving America’s Amazon with Ben Raines

Pre-registration is required by 12 p.m. CST Tuesday, January 26th, and space is limited.

While this is a free event, please support our work if you are able and make a tax-deductible donation at alaudubon.org/annualfund.

Join us for an evening with Ben Raines as he talks about his latest book, Saving America’s Amazon: The Threat to Our Nation’s Most Biodiverse River System.

Alabama boasts more species per square mile than any other state. Its rivers are home to more species of fish, crayfish, salamanders, mussels, snails, and turtles than any other aquatic system in North America. But the state’s wild places are under siege, the victim of exploitation, pollution, and neglect. In Saving America’s Amazon: The Threat to Our Nation’s Most Biodiverse River System, Ben explores Alabama’s extraordinary biodiversity, while chronicling the past and present hazards—from dams to pesticides to clear-cut logging to lax environmental regulation—that threaten the future of this priceless natural resource. The book, illustrated with Ben’s stunning photographs, is also a visual chronicle of Alabama’s remarkable, quickly vanishing, biodiversity.

About the author: Ben Raines is a journalist, filmmaker, and adventurer. In May of 2019, officials announced that Raines had discovered the wreck of the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. Raines has won more than two dozen awards for his coverage of environmental issues and natural wonders in Alabama and on the Gulf Coast and has co-authored several peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals. He wrote and directed The Underwater Forest, an award-winning film about the exploration of a seventy-thousand-year-old cypress forest found off the Alabama coast. Raines also wrote and produced the documentary America’s Amazon, which has aired on PBS stations around the country and been distributed to public schools across Alabama. His underwater film work has appeared in documentaries on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and PBS. Raines co-authored the book Heart of a Patriot with Senator Max Cleland, which chronicled Cleland’s journey from triple amputee to the US Senate. He is presently working on a book about the discovery of the Clotilda. Raines is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in filmmaking. He is also a US Coast Guard-licensed captain who gives tours of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and Alabama’s barrier islands. He lives with his wife in Fairhope, Alabama.

The book: In the greater Birmingham area, Alabama Booksmith has signed copies for ordering. Additionally, it may be purchased directly through the Montgomery-based NewSouth Books website here. We encourage registrants to support their local book store when possible. If purchasing through Amazon, we recommend using Amazon Smile and selecting Alabama Audubon as your charity of choice!

Registration: To register, visit https://alaudubon.org/event/online-2021-01-27/. If you’re new to our online system and don’t yet have a username and password, simply click the “X” on the pop up and fill out the basic form. If you do have a login, please use it as this helps us tremendously on our end! You should receive an automated email upon registering.

Please note, you will receive a separate email with the Zoom webinar instructions before the online event (once registration closes). You’ll need the link or webinar ID and password from this email to join the meeting. In the event the link does not work for you, you may need to go to the Zoom website and manually enter the webinar ID and password. Please double check your email and make sure it’s a valid email address prior to completing your registration. We’ve had several kick-backs when sending the Zoom meeting instructions out to registrants, and you won’t be able to join the webinar without this information. Thanks!

Questions? Email the Outreach & Communications Director.

FAQ’s:

I did not receive the email with the Zoom meeting instructions. Please double-check the email address you enter when registering for the online event as that is where the instructions will be sent (once registration closes). You may need to add us to your email provider’s safe sender list in the event it goes to spam. Also, please contact us by the morning of the event so that we have time to address your issue as generally you should have received the email right after registration closes.

The link doesn’t appear to be working. You may need to go to the Zoom website (https://zoom.us) and manually enter the webinar ID and password. Also, wait until just a couple of minutes before the meeting is supposed to begin to try to enter the meeting. It will not work if you try to join the meeting half an hour before it’s scheduled to begin, for instance. You can also check to make sure your computer meets the system requirements by clicking here.

Will this be recorded, and will I have the ability to view it later? We will be recording this event to post on our website and on our Vimeo page for anyone who was not able to register in time or missed the presentation.

Is there a waiting list? We do not have waiting lists for our online events at this time.