In the fleeting shafts of summer sunlight, we trekked through Discovery Park to the Daybreak Star Center to attend Salmon Nation’s AMERICAN HERITAGE PICNIC today. Open to members of both Chefs Collaborative and Slow Food Seattle, we were obviously anticipating great food, but keynote and RAFT founder Gary Nabhan was the main course.

Gary Paul Nabhan, Ph.D., is a writer, lecturer and world-renown conservation scientist. He is Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, and has become a leading voice for conserving and renovating native plant agriculture in the Americas. Over three decades, he has worked with more than a dozen indigenous communities on cross-cultural initiatives to revive indigenous foods to prevent diabetes, to restore ancient agricultural landscapes and to honor traditional knowledge. Gary spoke of the need to support (by enjoyment) the threatened foods of “the Salmon Nation”, which constitutes the extensive water and food shed of the many Pacific Northwest Salmon species.

A food conservation rockstar in his own right, Nabhan shared the spotlight with luminary Seattle chefs such as James Beard Foundation award winners John Sundstrom from Lark, Thierry Rautureau from Rover’s, Tamara Murphy from Brasa, and Fernando Divina from Tendrils. The local vittles bill of fare was mouth-watering beyond belief and constituted such delicacies as Lummi Island Wild Salmon’s wild reefnet-caught salmon with heirloom tomato and roasted corn relish, mountain niche farm rotisserie leg of Navajo-Churro lamb stuffed with chard and olives, wild chanterelle and lobster mushrooms, Makah Ozette potatoes, local corn, peppers, and tomatoes, wild huckleberries, and locally made cheese from Mt. Townsend Creamery and wines from Willamette Valley Vineyards. Phew! A perfect case study of how the idea and precepts of sustainability can work through the notion of what we extol at egg as “enlightened self-interest”. Indeed, today, selling sustainability couldn’t seem easier.

500,000 youths made the pilgrimage. They brought tents and blankets, sunblock and plenty of water. In keeping with the green spirit of the festival, every participant was given a backpack made of recycled nylon, a flashlight operated by a crank instead of batteries, and color-coded biodegradable trash bags so that personal garbage could be easily recycled. Meals were served on biodegradable plates. The entire festival was carbon offset, of course, and energy levels ran high as people played together, all gathered on this vast plain for a common purpose.

And all the prayer books were printed on recycled paper.

Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada? Or Save Creation Day in Loreto, Italy? In one of the strangest green confluences to date, Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 may go down in history as the day when the green movement definitively transcended cultural pigeonholes.

Yes, both the Burners and the burn-in-Hell-ers have gone green this year. It’s enough to make an eco-conscious branding agency smile.

It was a global convergence in messaging. Pope Benedict, resplendent in green vestments, regaled the youthful masses with the charge: “New generations will be entrusted with the future of the planet, which bears clear signs of a type of development that has not always protected nature’s delicate equilibriums. Courageous choices that can re-create a strong alliance between man and earth must be made before it is too late.” Meanwhile, the more scantily clothed (but no less devout) Burners proclaimed: “Beginning with the advent of the modern age, we have regarded nature as a beast that we can tame. If Burning Man has taught us anything, it’s that we can collaborate with nature.”

And not to be outdone by one another, both events will leave a lasting solar legacy after the crowds have dispersed and the carbon-offsetting trees have all been planted — the Vatican is installing solar panels on the roof of its main hall, and Burning Man LLC is donating solar panels to a small nearby town in Nevada.

Is humankind finally seeing the light?