Steven Rinella. The modern-day hunter-gatherer will keynote The People’s Banquet at the 2016 SHIFT Festival. Photo courtesy Gotham Artists
Avid outdoorsman, award-winning author (The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine; Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter; American Buffalo) and host of the popular TV show MeatEater Steven Rinella will keynote The 2016 People’s Banquet, SHIFT organizers announced today.
“Hunting and fishing are cornerstones of Jackson’s food heritage, and the hunting and fishing communities are deeply engaged in the protection and preservation of our natural resources,” said Christian Beckwith, SHIFT’s director. “Mr. Rinella’s participation will shine a light on a valley legacy that has much to offer the conversation we’re hosting at SHIFT.”
SHIFT’s popular celebration of the local food system, The People’s Banquet pairs local chefs with local farmers, cheese makers, bakers and brewers to create small plates sourced from local ingredients to create Jackson’s “foodie event of the year.”
After his presentation at The People’s Banquet, Mr. Rinella will be interviewed by Whit Fosburgh, President and CEO of The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Both Mr. Rinella and Mr. Fosburgh were instrumental to the creation of the Principles for Advancing Outdoor Recreation and Conservation, which were introduced at the 2015 SHIFT Festival.
Whit Fosburgh. Mr. Fosburgh, President and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, will interview Mr. Rinella as part of the 2016 People’s Banquet. Photo: Dusan Smetana
In June 2015, Mr. Fosburgh shared a video of Mr. Rinella discussing The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation with participants at The Conservation Recreation Summit in Grand Teton National Park in the summer of 2015.
The North American Model is a set of principles that has guided wildlife management and conservation decisions in the United States and Canada since 2001.
Summit participants agreed that a similar set of principles could be applied for the benefit of outdoor recreation and conservation interests alike.
The resulting Principles for Advancing Outdoor Recreation and Conservation were introduced at the 2015 SHIFT Festival.
In his career, Mr. Rinella has spoken to a wide range of audiences about his life as a modern-day hunter-gatherer. With humor and irreverence, he discusses the hunting lifestyle, wild game, the ethics of hunting, and the spiritual need for wilderness.
His talks are punctuated with stories of amazing and sometimes absurd adventures, such as getting poisoned by wild mushrooms, charged by a grizzly, bowled over by a moose, and nearly crushed by a wild boar that fell from the sky under very strange circumstances in the central highlands of the Philippines’ Luzon Island.
Mr. Fosburgh joined the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership as president and CEO in June 2010. His organization currently represents a coalition of 42 partners with a mission of guaranteeing quality places for Americans to hunt and fish.
The People’s Banquet pairs local chefs with local farmers, cheese makers, bakers and brewers to create small plates sourced from local ingredients to create Jackson’s “foodie event of the year.”
Mr. Rinella’s numerous books have been awarded the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. American Buffalo was named one of the best fifty non-fiction books of 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle.
He is a frequent guest on radio and TV news programs such as CNN’s American Morning, Fox and Friends, and the NPR programs All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, where he discusses the hunting lifestyle.
In 2011, Rinella hosted The Wild Within on Travel Channel. MeatEater premiered the next year on Sportsman Channel and is now in its sixth season.
