This is a turbulent time for the conservation of America’s natural and cultural heritage. From the current assaults on environmental protection to the threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, and disparity of environmental justice, the challenges facing the conservation movement are both immediate and long term. In this time of uncertainty, we need a clear and compelling guide for the future of conservation in America; a declaration to inspire the next generation of conservation leaders. This is that guide—what the authors describe as “a chart for rough water.” Written by the first scientist appointed as science advisor to the director of the National Park Service and the eighteenth director of the National Park Service, this is a candid, passionate, and ultimately hopeful book. The authors describe a unified vision of conservation that binds nature protection, historical preservation, sustainability, public health, civil rights and social justice, and science into common cause—and offer real-world strategies for progress. To be read, pondered, debated, and often revisited, The Future of Conservation in America is destined to be a touchstone for the conservation movement in the decades ahead. Read more: http://www.law.utah.edu/event/the-future-of-conservation-in-america-a-chart-for-rough-water/

Adventure with UMFA and Great Salt Lake Institute for a fun day at Spiral Jetty. Friends of all ages are welcome to create art, learn about the science of the lake, and explore the landscape. We’ll meet at Spiral Jetty on Rozel Point in Great Salt Lake. Directions are at www.umfa.utah.edu/index.php/spiral-jetty

umfa.utah.edu

Join author Scott Graham at Moab's beloved Back of Beyond Books for a reading and discussion of his book Yosemite Fall. Archaeologist Chuck Bender arrives with his family in the beautiful Yosemite Valley to study the 150-year-old murders of a pair of gold prospectors. In the midst of Chuck’s work, preparations for the annual Yosemite Slam rock-climbing competition, and a reunion with his old climbing buddies, the trip quickly turns threatening. One climber never shows up, climbing equipment fails, and Chuck and his wife, Janelle Ortega, are suspected in the shocking, present-day death of one of Chuck’s former rock-climbing partners. Together, Chuck and Janelle race against time to solve the dual mysteries and prove their innocence—all while facing down a ruthless killer on the loose. This is the fourth book in the National Park Mystery Series. https://www.facebook.com/events/696139870754561/

Join editor Thomas Lowe Fleischner and contributor Jana Richman at Southern Utah University at 4:00 p.m. for a discussion about natural history and Nature, Love, Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness. Count the petals of a globe mallow flower or listen for the whir of a black-chinned hummingbird and you’ve practiced natural history, connecting to a source of healing and connection that can be accessed by everyone. In Nature, Love, Medicine, ecologists and educators, poets and artists, and healers and the healed explore the notion that practicing attentive natural history remains an essential pathway to wellness, for individuals and societies. https://www.facebook.com/events/233956027431629/

Join author Amy Irvine at Moab’s beloved Back of Beyond Books for a reading and discussion on her latest book, Desert Cabal. Ed Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness turns 50 this fall, and its iconic author, who has inspired generations of rebel-rousing advocacy on behalf of the American West, is due for a tribute as well as a talking to. In Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, Amy Irvine admires the man who influenced her life and work while challenging all that is dated—offensive, even—between the covers of Abbey’s environmental classic. Irvine names and questions the “lone male” narrative—white and privileged as it is—that still has its boots planted firmly at the center of today’s wilderness movement, even as she celebrates the lens through which Abbey taught so many to love the wild remains of the nation. From Abbey’s quiet notion of solitude to Irvine’s roaring cabal, the desert just got hotter, and its defenders more nuanced and numerous.

Join editor Thomas Lowe Fleischner and contributors Jana Richman and Nalini Nadkarni at Utah Valley University for a discussion about Nature, Love, Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness. Count the petals of a globe mallow flower or listen for the whir of a black-chinned hummingbird and you’ve practiced natural history, connecting to a source of healing and connection that can be accessed by everyone. In Nature, Love, Medicine, ecologists and educators, poets and artists, and healers and the healed explore the notion that practicing attentive natural history remains an essential pathway to wellness, for individuals and societies.

In “Nature, Love, Medicine,” a diverse array of nearly two dozen writers—including psychologists, poets, biologists, teachers, and artists—share personal stories which urge and inspire readers to pay conscious, careful attention to the world, and remind natural scientists of the power that their work has to invigorate our core humanity and heal us as individuals. Three contributors—including the collection’s editor—to “Nature, Love, Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness ” will be at the King’s English Bookshop for a book talk, Q&A, and signing on “Nature, Love, Medicine” and Jana Richman’s new collection of essays “Finding Stillness in a Noisy World.” Thomas Lowe Fleischner is a naturalist and conservation biologist, and founding director of the Natural History Institute, and Faculty Emeritus at Prescott College, where he taught interdisciplinary environmental studies for almost three decades. He edited “The Way of Natural History,” and authored “Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons and Desert Wetlands.” Nalini Nadkarni is a forest ecologist who pioneered techniques for studying tree canopy communities in tropical and temperate forests, and is the author of “Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees,” and other books. She is a professor of biology at the University of Utah. Jana Richman is the author of a memoir, “Riding in the Shadows of Saints: A Woman’s Story of Motorcycling the Mormon Trail,” and two novels: “The Last Cowgirl” and “The Ordinary Truth.” “Nature, Love, Medicine” and “Finding Stillness in a Noisy World” are available to buy at The King’s English Bookshop: https://www.kingsenglish.com/

Our guest presenter for the Wasatch Packtivists meeting is Lynn Weston, a naturalist with extensive experience teaching at the Yellowstone Institute beginning in 2000. Lynn will present “Unique Stories of the Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction.” The return of wolves to Yellowstone is clearly one of the most dramatic events in ecological history, but there are many personal, unique and unknown stories during that time that are truly captivating and exciting. Prepare for some surprises as we explore these stories surrounding the reintroduction and issues regarding the Crystal Creek acclamation pen during 1995. Lynn is currently working with an Yellowstone Forever Institute class entitled “Wolves: Mythology and Reality.” Lynn became involved in the wolf Environmental Impact Statement in 1994 and was one of the first to assist the researchers and biologists in wolf location, pack behavior, and wolf dynamics in 1996. When not in Yellowstone, Lynn volunteers at the Ogden Nature Center assisting with school programs in field ecology and recently developed a docent program. Free and open to the public.

For more information; see Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1930732430321818/

Our guest presenter for the Wasatch Packtivists meeting is Lynn Weston, a naturalist with extensive experience teaching at the Yellowstone Institute beginning in 2000. Lynn will present “Unique Stories of the Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction.” The return of wolves to Yellowstone is clearly one of the most dramatic events in ecological history, but there are many personal, unique and unknown stories during that time that are truly captivating and exciting. Prepare for some surprises as we explore these stories surrounding the reintroduction and issues regarding the Crystal Creek acclamation pen during 1995. Lynn is currently working with an Yellowstone Forever Institute class entitled “Wolves: Mythology and Reality.” Lynn became involved in the wolf Environmental Impact Statement in 1994 and was one of the first to assist the researchers and biologists in wolf location, pack behavior, and wolf dynamics in 1996. When not in Yellowstone, Lynn volunteers at the Ogden Nature Center assisting with school programs in field ecology and recently developed a docent program. Free and open to the public.

For more information; see Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1930732430321818/

Our guest presenter for the Wasatch Packtivists meeting is Lynn Weston, a naturalist with extensive experience teaching at the Yellowstone Institute beginning in 2000. Lynn will present “Unique Stories of the Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction.” The return of wolves to Yellowstone is clearly one of the most dramatic events in ecological history, but there are many personal, unique and unknown stories during that time that are truly captivating and exciting. Prepare for some surprises as we explore these stories surrounding the reintroduction and issues regarding the Crystal Creek acclamation pen during 1995. Lynn is currently working with an Yellowstone Forever Institute class entitled “Wolves: Mythology and Reality.” Lynn became involved in the wolf Environmental Impact Statement in 1994 and was one of the first to assist the researchers and biologists in wolf location, pack behavior, and wolf dynamics in 1996. When not in Yellowstone, Lynn volunteers at the Ogden Nature Center assisting with school programs in field ecology and recently developed a docent program. Free and open to the public.

For more information; see Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1930732430321818/