Sustainable Communities Program at NAU

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the timber industry was drawn to the Colorado Plateau’s extensive pine forests. And African Americans played a big part in that industry.

Bison are among the most emblematic animals of the American West. Many Indigenous peoples relied on them for survival. Some, such as the Zuni, have oral histories of hunting them and performing a Buffalo Dance ceremony. Bison are known primarily as Plains animals, but historically they did extend into the Southwest.

The oldest organism in the world is 600,000-year-old Siberian bacteria, and the oldest plant is a 200,000-year-old sea grass meadow near Spain. But the Southwest has the distinction of being home to the largest concentration of old plant species.

A minnow that can reach six feet long and weigh eighty pounds—now that’s a fish story! But, this one happens to be true. The Colorado pikeminnow was known to reach such sizes.

The Grand Canyon is home to numerous native plants that are nutritional super houses. These “grand foods” or super foods contain high amounts of nutrients and antioxidants. The nutritional and medicinal values of many wild foods are only recently gaining attention from western dietitians, yet they’ve long been known by local Tribes.

In far northwest New Mexico, old farming traditions are meeting young appetites—and it’s a meeting where everyone wins.

The winter solstice is the longest night of the year for those in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a time traditionally associated with rebirth and renewal, as the sun pauses in its yearly trek.

Ancient foot trails radiate out from the Hopi mesas like the spokes of a wheel. One of these is known as the Palat’kwapi Trail, and it traverses through landscapes rich in Hopi history.

The Utah agave is also known as the century plant. But it doesn’t really take a century for this blue-green succulent to send up a long stalk and bloom—more like forty years. Just before it blooms, it’s full of sugars. That’s the perfect time to harvest its heart, a culinary tradition among the Hualapai people going back thousands of years.

Lake Mead is lower than it’s ever been, the result of decades of drought and warmer temperatures caused by climate change. The sinking water levels have revealed a different sort of catastrophe; layers of volcanic ash preserved in stone.