Gary Paul Nabhan, Ph.D., is a writer, lecturer and world-renowned conservation scientist. He is the outgoing Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, where he catalyzed the Canyon Country Fresh regional food initiative on the Colorado Plateau.

After gaining degrees in agriculture and arid lands resources from the University of Arizona, Dr. Nabhan co-founded Native Seeds/ SEARCH and became a leading voice for conserving and renovating native plant agriculture in the Americas.

Over three decades, he has worked with more than a dozen indigenous communities on cross-cultural initiatives to revive indigenous foods to prevent diabetes, to restore ancient agricultural landscapes and to honor traditional knowledge.

For this work and his related writings, he has received a MacArthur “Genius” award, and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Conservation Biology, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

He is a currently a Board member of the Seed Savers Exchange. He is author of twenty books (including Coming Home to Eat) and well over 200 technical articles and essays in addition to op-eds, poems, and reviews.

Dr. Nabhan's work moves from policy to practice, as his founding of the Renewing America's Food Traditions and Forgotten Pollinators campaigns demonstrate. He and wife Laurie Monti raise Navajo-Churro sheep, Black Spanish turkeys and native crops in the pygmy woodlands near Winona, Arizona.

This will be Dr. Nabhan’s last lecture before moving from Northern Arizona to Tucson. He will speak on his work on the Colorado Plateau and read from his newest books, Arab/American:  Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great Deserts (2008) and Renewing America's Food Traditions:  Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods (2008).

This lecture is part of the One Community Sustainable Living Lecture Series, sponsored by the Masters of Arts in Sustainable Communities, Program in Community, Culture and Environment, Center for Sustainable Environments, and Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Program in partnership with the Coconino County Sustainable Building Program, the Coconino County Sustainable Economic Development Initiative, the City of Flagstaff Sustainability Program, Willow Bend Environmental Education  Center, and Coconino Community College.