Ethnographic Overview And Assessment: Zion National Park, Utah ...

This applied ethnography study has confronted the problems of making its findings useful
to the managers of Zion National Park and Pipe Spring National Monument. The study has
confronted each of these problems and to some extent resolved them in an effort to understand
the interface between Southern Paiutes and the ecosystems of the northern Colorado Plateau.
1.6 The Northern Colorado Plateau Ecoregion
Zion National Park and Pipe Spring National Monument are located on the northern
portion of the Colorado Plateau. These parks are located in two of the major watersheds on the
Colorado Plateau which drain from the north to south into the Colorado River as it passes
through the Grand Canyon. This applied ethnography report contributes to the growing
scientific literature funded by the NPS to better understand the relationship between parks and
people. More specifically, this study addresses (1) the interface between Southern Paiute cultural
resources and these two NPS units, and (2) the extent to which Southern Paiute cultural
resources can be understood as components of ecosystems that surround Zion and Pipe Spring.
Given this is one of the first applied ethnography studies that attempts to address the role
of American Indian cultural resources from an ecosystem perspective, it is important to
describe this study as it was designed and as it has emerged over a period of almost two years
within the language of ecosystem management. Especially important are issues of scale, holism,
and smart databases.
1.6.1 Scale
There are four scales of analysis contained within this study. Three of these are illustrated
in Figure 3. The most general level is the ecoregion. The next level is the ecosystem, then the
park, and places within either the park or elsewhere in the ecoregion. Different types of
Southern Paiute cultural resource information are used to interpret cultural meanings that exist at
each of these scales of analysis.
Ecoregion
The relevant ecoregion for this study is defined as the lands of the Colorado Plateau located
north of the Colorado River where it passes through the Grand Canyon until the watershed reaches
the geophysical boundary of the Great Basin. This ecoregion contains a series of watersheds that
drain from the boundary with the Great Basin to the Colorado River. Like most ecoregions, this one
contains relatively unique ecosystems which are defined by major water catchment systems.
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