Dixie Forum to host presentation on human connection to wilderness

Dixie Forum to host presentation on human connection to wilderness

Sharing his insights into the lives of wild animals and the interconnectedness of nature, Brent Harris, a respected African wilderness guide and founder of Primal Pathways, will present at the next installment of Dixie State University’s weekly lecture series, Dixie Forum: A Window on the World. Harris will give the lecture “Signs of Life on the African Plains: Ecology, Conservation and Sustainability” at noon on Feb. 6 in the Dunford Auditorium, located in the Browning Resource Center on the Dixie State campus. Admission is free, and the public is encouraged to attend. As the founder of Primal Pathways, a full-service safari agency, Harris supports ethical safari travel and conservation through commerce. Additionally, he serves as the chairman of Primal Pathways Foundation, which envisages the establishment of a network of protected areas that links ecosystems and establishes wildlife corridors. By using sustainable land-use practices, the foundation facilitates the revival of communities and human resources while conserving biodiversity. Harris earned a degree in finance and accounting at the University of Cape Town, but his soul felt unsettled, and he quit his job to explore nature in 1998. His first solo expedition was in the Amazon Rainforest, where he traveled by canoe and foot while sleeping in a hammock and eating fish he caught in the river. After this expedition, Harris dedicated himself to the rehabilitation of a puma in the Bolivian cloud forests and moved to Hawaii, where the community was respectful toward the natural elements. Harris returned to Africa in 2000 to begin formal guide training at Phinda Game Reserve. He was the first guide to be licensed under South Africa’s national qualification structure. Dixie Forum is a weekly lecture series designed to introduce the St. George and Dixie State communities to diverse ideas and personalities while widening their worldviews via a 50-minute presentation. For its next installment, Dixie Forum will host Luria Petrucci as she lectures on technology that changes lives at noon on Feb. 13 in the Dunford Auditorium. For more information about Dixie State University’s Dixie Forum series, contact DSU Forum Coordinator John Burns at 435-879-4712 or burns@utahtech.edu or visit humanities.utahtech.edu/the-dixie-forum.