AHS LIVE: Nuwu Pahsats: The People’s Garden
with Ian Ford-Terry, archaeologist and tribal liaison, Springs Preserve
Thursday, October 1, 2026 from 2-3 p.m. ET
Virtual
$15 AHS members/$20 non-members
This program is approved for 1 CEU with the Association of Professional Landscape Designers
Every aspect of a garden – every root, soil microbe, flower, pollinator, and season – is bound up in a web of relationships that by itself cannot survive. Nuwu Pahsats, “The People’s Garden” at Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, is built on that same principle: mutually flourishing relationships between plants and pollinators, between people and the living earth, between speakers of an endangered indigenous language and their interpreters, and between a coalition of tribal communities, NGOs, government agencies, Master Gardeners and nurseries learning to grow native plants together. In this talk, Ian Ford-Terry tells the story of how patient, genuine collaboration with the Las Vegas Paiute Language Group turned a well-intentioned “ethnobotanical garden” concept into a revitalized cultural landmark, traditional ecological knowledge and language repository, and culturally responsive seed bank and nursery — and what that slow, intentional work of relationship-building can teach any gardener cultivating community alongside their plants.
Ian Ford-Terry serves as the Archaeologist & Tribal Liaison for the Springs Preserve, where he applies his interdisciplinary expertise in horticulture, ethnobotany, and archaeology. His work focuses on leveraging Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to inform modern land and plant conservation practices, particularly in arid ecosystems like Southern Nevada. At Springs Preserve, Ford-Terry evaluated and determined the plant selections for Nuwu Pahsats Garden, the Ethnobotanical Garden of the Nuwuvi, by consulting with the Southern Paiute people and integrating ethnographic and archaeobotanical data. He also established the Nuwu Pahsats Speaker Series, featuring Indigenous Knowledge Keepers discussing heirloom seeds, food sovereignty, and traditional farming practices.
Further encouraging collaboration in horticulture, Ford-Terry also founded and leads a broad-based Native Plant Propagation Coalition, consisting of Bureau of Land Management botanists, National Park Service nursery managers, Southern Nevada Water Authority restoration ecologists, University of Nevada Reno Extension Master Gardeners, THPOs, and local nursery managers. The Coalition focuses on sharing propagation protocols and plant material. Ford-Terry also directs the collection, cleaning, cataloging, and distribution of native and heirloom seeds. Ford-Terry’s community engagement includes securing funding from NFL Green to develop landscape and install irrigation at the Las Vegas Indian Center Healing Garden, where he co-designed a permaculture plan. Additionally, while working in a previous position at University of Nevada Reno Extension, he led an effort to train staff and Master Gardener volunteers on accessibility standards and ADA compliance. Ford-Terry holds an M.A. in Anthropology (Archaeology/Paleoethnobotany) from University of Nevada Las Vegas, with a focus on Agave-Human Symbiosis. He is the recipient of the American Horticultural Society’s 2026 Horticultural Innovation Award.