Joe Pacal – Restoring Indigenous Lands
Business-Organization: Saint Michael Indian School
Joe Pacal has lived and worked on the Navajo Reservation for the past 18 years designing and implementing gardening programs and land restoration projects for schools and community organizations. In addition to working with public and private pre K to 12th grades, he designed vocational therapeutic programs for students with developmental and physical disabilities. He provided gardening activities and ceramics classes for “at risk” teenagers enrolled in a residential psychiatric care program. Previously he lived in Hawaii for 12 years as an environmental educator and promoter of “edible landscaping”, creating attractive landscape designs featuring food producing trees, perennial shrubs and other traditional food plants. In these very different ecosystems, the intention has been the same, to help reconnect people to the healing potential of being in harmonious relationship with Mother Earth.
From 2016 to 2017 Pacal served as the Lead Horticulturist for PICH (Partnerships to Improve Community Health) a program funded by the Center for Disease Control to promote improved nutrition by increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally in school and community gardens. (See the PICH article)
Currently Pacal works at Saint Michael Indian School where he has taught high school classes in environmental science and ecology taking advantage of the school’s 440 acres of land (which includes two riparian corridors) as an outdoor classroom. He coordinates garden activities for all grades, pre-k to 12th, manages a native plant nursery and engages students in land restoration projects. A training program for school garden specialists, native plant landscaping and land restoration is envisioned to build capacity for maximizing the potential of school and community gardens on the Navajo Reservation and around the world.
Saint Michaels, AZ
United States
Website: http://Sjoepacal.com
Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/joe.pacal
Workshop(s)
Workshop 1: School and Community Gardens and Land Restoration on the Navajo Reservation
Schools, community organizations, local governments and churches have the potential to be powerful instruments of social change. Growing more food locally using regenerative agricultural methods has many benefits – improving health and academic performance in students, reconnecting people to nature, restoring soil and wildlife habitat locally and reducing our dependance on the destructive practices of industrial agriculture. We heard about programs and partnerships that are developing and being implemented on the Navajo Reservation and discuss what can be done in your community.
