Jeremy Spoon, PhD
“Drawing Meaningful Connections: Interpreting Indigenous Relationships with Ancestral Landscapes in Participatory Ways”

Jeremy is assistant professor of anthropology at Portland State University and a research associate at The Mountain Institute in Washington D.C. His interests in local ecological knowledge, environmental sustainability, mountainous protected areas, place-based spirituality, and political economy have led him on a unique path to interpretation’s door. His focus on connecting indigenous people and interpretation has taken him from Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park (Nepal), Hell’s Gate National Park (Kenya) and now to the Great Basin where he has conducted efforts that facilitate people from seven nations of indigenous Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute/Chemehuevi) to tell their stories in the public forum of interpretation.

He is collaborating with these seven nations to create interpretive and educational content for a planned visitor center, trails, campgrounds, and picnic areas in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. A group of tribally designated representatives co-conducted the research and writing for the project. They also created text for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Vegetation Plan—ensuring that the proposed developments are culturally appropriate to the nations that consider the Spring Mountains to be their creation place and an important source of resources.

A second local project funded by the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA) is creating a government-to-government consultation method for these seven nations and the U.S. Forest and Fish and Wildlife Services by generating proposed collaborative consultation and resource management plans for multiple protected areas in southern Nevada. Ecological knowledge is also being collected from indigenous expert knowledge-holders, who will also serve on resource management advisory committees that conduct forest surveys. Finally, families will be invited to harvest pine nuts—promoting intergenerational knowledge transmission of language, stories, songs, and resource management practices.

Jeremy and his Nuwuvi colleagues will share with us some success stories that came about through American Indian and government agency collaboration and how visitor experiences will be enhanced by interpretation through indigenous eyes.

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Sharon Schafer
“The Art of Nature”

Sharon K. Schafer has a varied background ranging from painter and photographer to wildlife biologist and river guide. As a full-time artist, she combines two loves—nature and art. In an effort promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world, she has dedicated herself to the creation of beautifully artistic yet scientifically accurate images that appeal to the art collector and the environmental educator alike.

Schafer’s sense of adventure and unflagging curiosity about the natural world have taken her to the ends of the earth. She has worked extensively as an artist, photographer, and videographer in the Arctic, Africa, and the Antarctic. Throughout the world, Schafer shares her artistic talent and passion for the wildlands by teaching art and nature-related classes and lecturing extensively about the stunning beauty and amazing diversity of life on our planet.

Her excellence as a wildlife painter has been recognized by the international Society of Animal Artists as well as the Artists for Conservation. Her paintings have been juried into numerous national competitions and displayed nationwide. Schafer’s current traveling show, “The Art of Nature: Images from the Wildlands of Southern Nevada,” which was developed in collaboration with the Nevada State Museum, will be on exhibit during the NAI National Workshop.

Schafer’s multimedia presentation of photographs, paintings, and field sketches, blended with music will take you on a journey into the wildlands of southern Nevada. She will demonstrate and discuss how the visual arts provide a vital and  effective tool with which to engage visitors and evoke a deeper understanding and emotional appreciation of the beauty and diversity of the natural world.

She is currently working in collaboration with the Wilderness Team of the Southern Nevada Agency Partnership (SNAP)—a unique partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service—to bring this program to the visitors and residents of the southern Nevada in an effort to raise awareness of the region’s wilderness areas. This innovative project, which is funded by the Southern Nevada Lands Management Act, will use the visual arts to encourage the viewer to come away with a different perspective: no longer seeing the public lands of southern Nevada as a desert wasteland, but rather as a place of unparalleled natural beauty and diversity that is deserving of their care and concern.