Welcome One and All

Amanda Klenner
Jan 1, 2016
2 min read

Welcome One and All

I am so excited to bring you the first annual Mountain West Herb Conference here in beautiful Breckenridge Colorado June 16-19th, 2016.

When I first moved to Colorado almost five years ago now, I found a lot of beautiful, vibrant herbalists working throughout the front range and in the mountains, but quickly found that there wasn't much of a community surrounding the herbalists in the area. After working in the woods, foot hills, plains and deserts over this time I have learned about the vibrant, local, bio-regional herbs of the area, and use them above almost all other herbs. I have been observing the changes in the forests due to climate change and various insects coming in and completely transforming our forests.

I wanted to create a conference where people who are living, working, and tending the land in the Mountain West to come, connect, share ideas, and focus on learning our bio-regional plants, and the different ecological issues that are surrounding these plants. I want this to be a place where herb growers, producers, healers, clinicians, scientists, and traditional people can connect, share ideas, teach, and work on building a community in this region where we all work, and which we all love.

I am very excited to bring this to the herbal community, especially to herbalists who live and work in the mountainous regions, and surrounding areas in Western North America from Mexico all the way up into the Rocky Mountains in Canada. We have similar plants growing in each region, and are working with some of the same environmental issues throughout the west.

I would like to invite you, the herbalist, student, land tender, healer, wise woman or wise man, to come and join us in this great adventure, and help us bring the knowledge of the abundant herbs of the area to others working here. Lets share ideas, compare notes, and discuss what is happening in our bio-regions. Lets talk about the changes we are seeing in the forests due to bark beetle infestiations. Lets discuss plant populations, harvesting techniques, and the abundant wild medicinals that we harvest. Lets also talk about the plats that are overharvested and becomming endangered, and how we can help protect them and encourage healthy populations.

Together we can make a great difference. I hope to see you there! Join us!

Many green blessings from Colorado - Amanda