Autorentext

Gary Paul Nabhan is an Arab American ethnobotanist, desert ecologist, and coastal wetlands restorationist, known to the Ecumenical Franciscan Order as Brother Coyote. The author of dozens of books focused primarily on the interaction of biodiversity and cultural diversity, he is also a pioneer in the local food movement and the heirloom seed-saving movement. He cofounded Native Seeds/SEARCH, a nonprofit conservation organization working to preserve place-based Southwestern agricultural plants and knowledge of their uses, then served as director of conservation, research, and collections at both the Desert Botanical Garden and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where he helped create Ironwood Forest National Monument. He founded the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, then joined the University of Arizona faculty and founded the Center for Regional Food Studies. The recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant,” a Lannan Literary Award, a Pew Fellowship, and numerous other distinctions, Gary Paul Nabhan lives in Patagonia, Arizona, where he farms a diverse set of heirloom fruit and nut varieties from the Spanish Mission era and from the Middle Eastern homelands of his ancestors.