The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025
Time: 7 p.m., MDT
Where: Bears Ears Education Center 567 W Main St, Hwy 191, Bluff, UT
Photographer and writer Stephen Strom will show slides from the book he co-authored with Jonathan Bailey, The Greater San Rafael Swell, at The Bears Ears Education Center in Bluff, Utah. He will also talk about his new book, Forging a Sustainable Southwest: The Power of Collaborative Conservation. This event is free and open to the public. The event is hosted by the Bears Ears Partnership.
About the books:
Natural and human history come together in The Greater San Rafael Swell, which spans much of Emery County in Utah. Authors Stephen Strom and Jonathan Bailey paint a multi-faceted picture of a singular place through photographs, along with descriptions of geology, paleontology, archaeology, history, and dozens of interviews with individuals who devoted more than two decades to developing a shared vision of the future of both the Swell and the County. At its core, the book relates the important story of how a coalition of ranchers, miners, off-road enthusiasts, conservationists, recreationists, and Native American tribal nations worked together for nearly 25 years to forge and pass the Emery County Public Lands Management Act in 2019.
Forging a Sustainable Southwest introduces readers to four conservation efforts that provide insight into how diverse groups of citizens have worked collaboratively to develop visions for land use that harmonized sometimes conflicting ecological, economic, cultural, and community needs. Through the voices of more than seventy individuals involved in these efforts, we learn how they’ve developed plans for protecting, restoring, and stewarding lands sustainably; the management and funding tools they’ve used; and their perceptions of the challenges that remain and how to meet them.
