Significant milestones for America’s National Parks and Public Lands will synchronize at the 2016 Amazing Earthfest, May 8-14, in the tiny vacation destination of Kanab, Utah.
Earthfest inspires people to visit, appreciate and support national and state parks, forests, monuments and public lands of the American West. In 2016, Amazing Earthfest will hold its 10th anniversary celebration of experiential learning, arts and outdoor adventure.
People from around the nation will gather in beautiful Kanab to enjoy a delicious variety of nature-based activities. Those include hiking and cycling, documentary films, live music and informative presentations by experts and scholars in archaeology, astronomy, earth sciences, wildlife and more. Thirty-five exciting events over seven days will educate, stimulate and fascinate all who have discovered the magical red rock spectacle that is the western edge of the Colorado Plateau.
Even more momentous, the year 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of America’s National Park Service. Established by the U.S. Congress in 1916 to protect spectacular landscapes and develop visitor services for a newly designated collection of the wildest places in America, the Park Service has much to celebrate. And participants in Southern Utah’s Amazing Earthfest will join millions of Americans in doing just that.
Eye-popping natural beauty like that found in Utah’s canyon country can engender hidden yet powerful emotions and create a sense of wonder. Protecting these stunning landscapes in their natural state is what documentary filmmaker Ken Burns referred to when he called our National Parks “America’s best idea.” Amazing Earthfest is proud to engage the American public and overseas visitors in recognizing this signature achievement.
To commemorate this anniversary, we will feature We Know Not What We Do, www.weknownotwhatwedo.net, a national and international award winning documentary that sends a love letter to humanity, imploring us to make a moral and spiritual shift in the way we humans think about and live on our planet Earth. Special guest and keynote speaker Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker, recently honored with a national humanitarian award, will appear with her film.
As a centerpiece of her visit to Kanab and as a highlight of this year’s festival, there will be a free, Mother’s Day screening of We Know Not What We Do, at Crescent Moon Theater, Sunday, May 8, at
be a free, Mother’s Day screening of We Know Not What We Do, at Crescent Moon Theater, Sunday, May 8, at 6 p.m.
6 p.m. After the personal introduction by Baker, the film will be shown, and then followed by a lively community conversation to explore thoughts, feelings and new directions that individuals, families and communities can take in responding to a changing world.
We Know Not What We Do, produced by Aaron David Taylor, is a tough but tender plea to human beings. It presents both the voice of love and the voice of reason, as it sets out to creatively examine the most important challenge of our time: man’s relationship to his environment. The film presents the story of this very misunderstood relationship, and how this misunderstanding has caused destruction in both the biosphere and the biodiversity of planet Earth.
The film features interviews with Katherine Hayhoe, Richard Alley, Mary Pipher, Chief Leonard Crow Dog and many others, as it explores exactly what is being sacrificed because of our unbridled addiction to fossil fuels and examines the lack of will that we are displaying in solving the climate crisis. DVD’s will be available for purchase.
While visiting Amazing Earthfest, Baker will also be signing her new book, Gifts of Gratitude, at several speaking appearances around Kanab including The United Church of Kanab/Fredonia, Best Friends Animal Society, Willow Canyon Outdoor and more.
In a serendipitous coincidence, 2016 also marks the 20th anniversary of one of America’s most important national monuments; the 1.9 million acre landscape-scale frontier in Southern Utah known as Grand Staircase-Escalante, managed by the U.S. Department of Interior. Through a brilliant series of designations that help connect wildlife corridors from Mexico to Canada, the all-new National Conservation Lands system was created from federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Grand Staircase is the largest land-based unit of the system. Its vast reaches contain remarkable and largely still undiscovered treasures for science in paleontology, archaeology, geology and wildlife. In partnership with BLM, Amazing Earthfest helps tell the story of these treasured lands and the people who inhabit them.
Grab your hiking boots and camera; bring your family and friends to celebrate a decade of outdoor learning, adventure and memorable experiences while exploring shared values in conservation and land ethics. Visit www.AmazingEarthfest.org for festival information and links to visitor services.