October 7-10, 2015
Held each October in the midst of the largest intact ecosystem in the Lower 48, SHIFT is an annual festival that celebrates the intersection of conservation with Nature, Culture and Adventure. The 2014 SHIFT Festival, which runs from October 7-10, includes speakers such as Yvonne Chouinard, Mark Bittman, Charlie Hamilton James, Angel Collinson, David Quammen, Lucas Debari as well as multiple programmatic pathways.
America’s first sustainable food festival activates the renowned bars, restaurants and foodists of Jackson Hole as we celebrate the interface of food, sustainability, health and place, connect people to the sources of their food, and strengthen our local food system.
The objective is to advance on-the-ground solutions that leverage outdoor recreation for conservation gains, and to provide a unified framework for these natural allies that will allow them to influence conservation and outdoor recreation policies at both local and international levels, thereby increasing success in the protection of our public lands and waters.
Conservation lies at the core of Jackson Hole’s environment, economy and character. Over the past 140 years, the region has been the epicenter of some of North America’s seminal conservation efforts, including the formation of Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, the drafting of the Wilderness Act, and the expansion of Grand Teton National Park to its current boundaries.
Throughout North America, some of our most beautiful and well-known communities—places like Bar Harbor, Moab, Sayulita and Hanalei—enjoy a similar relationship between economy, character and natural capital. We call such communities GEMS: Gateways to Environments of Major Significance. Each of these GEMS shares a fundamental reality: over the long term, they can be no healthier than the environments in which they reside.
These GEMS share another trait: they attract both millions of visitors each year and influential part-time residents. When they serve as models of sustainability, they have a unique opportunity to influence the behavior of their guests. By fostering sustainability in North American GEMS, SHIFT seeks to promote them as beacons of possibility—and, by extension, to affect the world they influence.
