This is an applied ethnographic study of Southern Paiute cultural resources and how these are related to the natural ecosystems that surround and incorporate Zion National Park in southern Utah and Pipe Spring National Monument in northern Arizona. Southern Paiute people perceive Zion National Park and Pipe Spring National Monument as places whose significance derives from larger cultural and ecological landscapes. Southern Paiute people view both parks as being parts of riverine ecosystems. Zion National Park is a place along the Virgin River, and Pipe Spring National Monument part of the greater Kanab Creek Hydrological System. The current boundaries of both parks are largely irrelevant for understanding the lives of birds that fly along the river, of deer who seasonally migrate up and down the river, and of fish who swim in the river. Paiute people, whose ancestors lived along these riverine ecosystems for a thousand years or more, recognize that the plants they gathered, the animals they hunted, and the lives they lived are unrelated to the current boundaries of these two parks. As a result, the National Park Service and the Southern Paiutes arrived at the same conclusion: that is, to understand the cultural and natural significance of these parks requires knowledge of their relationships with other places. Thus it is both administratively and culturally appropriate for this applied ethnographic study to follow an ecosystem approach.

In addition to the ethnographic reports produced for this collection, the following articles and book chapters were produced:

Stoffle, R. W., and M. Evans
1976 Resource Competition and Population Change: A Kaibab Paiute Ethnohistorical Case. Ethnohistory 23(2):173-197.

Stoffle, R. W., and M. Evans
1978 Kaibab Paiute History: The Early Years. Fredonia: Kaibab Paiute Tribe. Kaibab Paiute Cultural Heritage Series, #1.

Stoffle, R. W., K. L. Jones, and H. F. Dobyns
1995 Direct European Immigrant Transmission of Old World Pathogens to Nimic Indians During the Nineteenth Century. American Indian Quarterly 19(2):181-203.