Illuminating Landscape: Inquiries into Land, History, and Culture

In the Fall of 2009 West Marin Commons Tending the Wild Collaborative presented a series of talks offered to stimulate dialogue across the nature-culture spectrum. The Fall talks are listed below.

Illuminating Landscape: Inquiries into Land, History, and Culture

Friday, September 25, 2009

Nick Tipon presents Sacred Sites: Preserving Native American Cultural Resources in Marin and Sonoma

Nick is a southern Pomo elder, Chair of the Sacred Sites Protection Committee of Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. (FIGR is the federally recognized tribe of southern Sonoma and Marin counties.) Nick’s voice has been essential to the West Marin Commons Tending the Wild Ethnobiology Collaborative.

Nick presents a practical and deep understanding of what it means to preserve culture amidst the complexity of modern life. His insights help us all to grasp our roles within the landscape.

“artifacts … tell only a little about the people who made them and their collective life. “

“… with such losses as language, and with old songs and dances no longer known …”  What must the tribe do?

(This talk was not recorded.)

Ignacio Chapela presents Wilderness Within – Tame, manipulate, own. To what purpose? By whom? For whom? Unto who?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Ignacio Chapela is Assistant Professor of Microbial Ecology at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley. He is founder of The Mycological Facility, Oaxaca, a facility dealing with questions of natural resources and indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Dr. Chapela is deeply engaged in the current debate over the role of biotechnology in our society, environment and economy.

Link to Dr. Chapela’s talk here:

Wilderness Within, Part 1

Wilderness Within, Part 2

Wilderness Within, Part 3

Lillian Vallee presents

Singing Back the River, Singing Back the Lake:
Reviving Nature and Culture in the Central Valley

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Lillian Vallee helps extend our sense of place from the coast inland to the Central Valley. Poet, writer, translator, teacher at Modesto Junior College, Vallee is a restorationist who pays tribute to the natural and cultural heritage of the Central Valley in all her activities. Join us for her inspired description of the nature-based cultural renaissance taking place there.