Bringing Sustainability to the Ground Level

Preface and Acknowledgments

We launched our work in the Yellowstone River Valley in 2006 when we began the first of a series of cultural research projects there. The initial work, conducted over six months, involved interviews with over 300 people in the valley, and our goal was to have each interviewee explain why the Yellowstone River was important. On average, we spent an hour with each person, and we generated over 6,000 pages of transcribed interview data. Later, in 2012 and 2018, we conducted follow-up interviews, often with many of the same people and sometimes with newly recruited individuals.

We also helped with the Yellowstone River Basin Water Planning project sponsored by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, ...