Nabhan Speaks at UTEP at 5PM Today

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Ethnobotanist, conservationist, farmer, essayist and internationally-celebrated nature writer, Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan, will lecture and sign his new book, Chasing Chiles, this evening in Room 116 at the Undergraduate Learning Center on the UTEP campus. A reception will follow at the Centennial Museum. (Map)

Nabhan was the Founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University. He co-founded Native Seeds/Search, a clearinghouse of native varieties of agricultural seeds of the American Southwest and northwest Mexico, and founded RAFT (Renewing America's Food Traditions), "an alliance of food, farming, environmental and culinary advocates who have joined together to identify, restore and celebrate America's biologically and culturally diverse food traditions through conservation, education, promotion and regional networking."

Mother Earth News has called Gary (an orchard-keeper and wild forager) "the father of the local food movement."He is also an Ecumenical Franciscan brother.

Chasing Chiles is co-authored with Kurt Michael Friese and Kraig Kraft. "Chasing Chiles looks at both the future of place-based foods and the effects of climate change on agriculture through the lens of the chile pepper - from the farmers who cultivate this iconic crop to the cuisines and cultural traditions in which peppers play a huge role."

Cinco Puntos Press

Biodiversity depends on multiculturalism. Preserving diverse cultures for the sake of biodiversity (and vice versa) is what Gary Nabhan is telling us. Uprooting indigenous peoples and putting them on reservations, for example, is just bad environmental policy not to mention being egregiously immoral and unjust. Respecting the integrity and the beauty of different cultures is so very important for the survival of all of us. After all, indigenous human cultures are vital, evolutionary products and crucial components of ecosystems. We uproot them - we uproot much more.

That is why we are so fortunate in El Paso to have the publishing company, Cinco Puntos Press, a publisher of multicutural books. As a matter of fact, Cinco Puntos has published a children's book by Nabhan - Efraín of the Sonoran Desert - a story told to Nabhan by a Seri Elder. As a scientist Dr. Nabhan asked, "Why do lizards, that are endangered elsewhere, continue to thrive in the Seri homeland?" The answer comes in the form of a story - a story that reveals that the protection of a species depends on a particular native culture.

Begun in 1985 by authors, Lee and Bobby Byrd, Cinco Puntos strives to publish "great books which make a difference in the way you see the world." They excel in bilingual and multicultural books. They find the most creative story tellers and the best illustrators on the frontera. You can read more about their publishing company here. Cinco Puntos has a blog that you can follow and an email list for valuable updates. Poet, Bobby Byrd, has his own blog.

If you want to help to preserve and promote the biodiversity of our borderland, you have a friend in Cinco Puntos Press and their love for the beautiful cultural diversity that enriches and energizes all of our lives.

Cinco Puntos offers online ordering although I love to visit their friendly store and office at 701 Texas Avenue.

Above photo published with permission from Carolyn Rhea Drapes aka Chacal la Chaise.

Food with a Human Face

If there could be a title for Dr. Gary Nabhan's workshop at UTEP last Friday, it might be "Food with a Human Face" - an overarching theme of his life's work. With the background of the new alliance, Sabores Sin Fronteras (Flavors without Borders), Dr. Nabhan motivated the participants to think about food traditions of their families and their place on the frontera - to do some "cultural memory banking".

Sabores Sin Fronteras "is a new regional, bi-national and multi-cultural alliance to document, celebrate and conserve farming and food folkways that span the U.S./Mexico borderlands from Texas and Tamaulipas on the east to Ambos Californias on the west."

His work to "document, celebrate and conserve farming and food folkways" of the borderland stems from an old thesis of his: there can be no biodiversity without cultural diversity. Uproot a culture, assimilate it, destroy it, homogenize it and the genetic diversity of its food stuffs will be lost. Conversely, to preserve the great biodiversity of foods, one must preserve indigenous human cultures. This thesis is particularly apparent in his book, Enduring Seeds, among others.

You can join this new borderlands foodways alliance and receive updates or request information by emailing saboressinfronteras@gmail.com.

Gary Paul Nabhan at UTEP Thursday and Friday

Ethnobotanist, conservationist, farmer and essayist, Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan will lecture and conduct a workshop at UTEP this Thursday and Friday, April 16th and 17th. Dr. Nabhan is best known for his work to recover traditional food practices and maintain the biodiversity of our food supply. He is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Nabhan also co-founded Native Seeds/Search, a clearinghouse of native varieties of agricultural seeds of the American Southwest and northwest Mexico, and founded RAFT (Renewing America's Food Traditions), "an alliance of food, farming, environmental and culinary advocates who have joined together to identify, restore and celebrate America’s biologically and culturally diverse food traditions through conservation, education, promotion and regional networking."

Thursday evening, April 16th at 6:30 p.m. at Quinn Hall, Rm. 212, Dr. Nabhan will talk about "Arab-American Influences on Food and Farming in the Borderlands".

On Friday from Noon until 1:30 p.m. he will conduct a workshop on "Renewing Traditional Borderland Foods". The workshop will encourage writing family oral histories, poems, and narratives about traditional foods of families in the borderlands and will outline strategies to renew these traditions. The workshop will be conducted at Alumni Lodge at the Peter and Margaret deWetter Center.

The lecture and the workshop are free and open to the public.