2025 Speakers:
Please check back often as the speaking lineup is still evolving.
Mohave County Master Gardeners
Wayne M. Hollins, Water Conservation
Mike Jones, ISA Certified Arborist
2024 Speakers:
Carrie Calisay Cannon
Carrie Calisay Cannon is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, and also of Oglala Lakota, and German ancestry. She has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology and an M.S. in Resource Management. If you wish to connect with Carrie you will need a fast horse, by weekday she fills her days as a fulltime Ethnobotanist with the Hualapai Indian Tribe of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, by weekend she is a lapidary and silversmith artist who enjoys chasing the beautiful as she creates Native southwestern turquoise jewelry.
Lecture:
The ethnobotanical story of the Hualapai Tribe begins with the plant knowledge the people have inherited from their great grandparents who lived entirely off the land. Hualapai grandchildren live in a completely different modern world. A world of cell phones, text messages, and tiktok. The information presented will share about the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project, an intergenerational program on the Hualapai Indian Reservation which shares land and plant based knowledge from elders to youth. This presentations will share about the crucial role that plant resource acquisition has played in Hualapai culture, knowledge that has been fine-tuned and perfected over millennia.
Carmen Gonzales
Carmen Gonzales is an environmental specialist, water matriarch, permaculture designer, poet, and musician who has been dedicated to helping communities develop resilience by remembering our sacred relationship with water. Carmen has worked in the Environmental Science field for over 20 years serving Tribes and rural communities and is inspired by the hope of watershed restoration through the lens of indigenous wisdom. Always an “edge walker,” Carmen has been working to find the balance between good science, traditional ecological knowledge, personal healing, and cultural evolution. Carmen is driven by the vision of supporting the work of revitalizing watersheds and communities through strengthening relationships that nourish land and life to serve as a model for change that can ripple out and benefit all beings everywhere.
Lecture:
In this session, Carmen Gonzales, Environmental Specialist and Permaculture Designer, will share inspiration and solutions rooted in indigenous traditional ecological knowledge for developing resilience in the face of drought, desertification, and climate change. Carmen has been working with Tribes throughout Nevada and the desert west to design more connected ways of living that promote healthy people, soil, and watersheds. Permaculture Design gives us the opportunity to learn from the wisdom of the ancestors while balancing good science and proven best practices to create regenerative living systems that provide for our needs while supporting our Mama Earth. Carmen will weave a story of grief, trauma, healing, resilience, and abundance into a flowing stream of hope and action that we can use to create a better world for all beings.
Peggy Sue Sorensen
Most people think of grilling meat or barbeque sauce when they hear the word Mesquite. However, the best-kept secret and the real star of the Mesquite tree is the bean pod that grows on it! And chances are good that you have Mesquite trees growing near you!
Lecture:
Peggy Sue Sorensen of The Desert Kitchen will be giving a workshop on this amazing food source. She will show you how to identify a Mesquite tree, as well as how to harvest, store and process the bean pods. She will also demonstrate how to prepare them into some yummy treats that you will be able to sample.
You can find Peggy Sue in The Desert Kitchen Facebook group
Opioid Overdose Data to Action Program
Mohave County Department of Public Health
Lecture: Community Naloxone and Overdose Training
The county will be discussing how to identify an opioid overdose, what Naloxone and Narcan are, how to use them, harm reduction tactics, and useful resources in the community.
2023 Speakers:
10am Successful Small Scale Beekeeping with the Mojave Desert’s Locally Adapted Honeybees
Patrick Pynes, Northern Arizona Organic Beekeepers + The Honeybee Teacher
11am Composting
Dennis Lesowsky, Bullhead City Master Gardener
12pm Tips for Planting New Trees
Debbie Miller, Bullhead City Master Gardener
Leroy Jackson, Bullhead City Master Gardener
Bill Stillman, Bullhead City Master Gardener
1pm Growing Mushrooms at Home
Phillip, Arizona Mushroom Society and Bufo Mushroom