The South Pasadena Public Library will host “Greening South Pasadena: Unveiling the Healing Powers of Native Flora and Fauna with Matthew Teutimez” at the Library Community Room on Tuesday, April 16, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Teutimez is an elder of the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation, and serves as the tribe’s biologist and director of resources. Teutimez specializes in ethnobotanical and cultural uses of native flora and fauna, including food and medicine, and will discuss sustainability for the present and future generations residing in the Los Angeles basin. He has been designated by his tribe to possess and share Kizh-Gabrieleño cultural knowledge and practices taught to him by Chief Ernie P. Teutimez-Salas, along with multiple elders of the tribe.
Teutimez received his bachelor and master of science degrees in biology from California State University, Long Beach, and is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, working on an interdisciplinary and multi-university project to map and describe the landscape history of the basin. He is a member of several committees and workgroups including the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Tribal Advisory Committee; CalEPA’s Community Science Model Workgroup; the city of Los Angeles’ Tree Ambassador Program; and the Los Angeles Sanitation & Environment’s Biodiversity Workgroup.
Teutimez is also the founder and executive director of an indigenous nonprofit known as Xārvo – Laboratory for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, which was created to integrate and apply indigenous methods and knowledge into environmental stewardship, food, medicine and land management projects.
The discussion is part of the library’s Sowing South Pasadena initiative, which will present a series of programs and activities through May celebrating sustainability and promoting community engagement. The program is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the state librarian.
First published in the April 4 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
