It is officially April, which means Earth Day is right around the corner. Rather than just celebrate Earth Day on April 22, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau launched an Earth Month initiative to engage residents and visitors in the drive to sustainability.
“Our goal is to highlight the progress of our partners dedicated to fulfilling the Sedona Sustainable Tourism Plan throughout April, while promoting initiatives we hope residents and visitors alike will undertake so we can all continue our sustainability journey together,” Sedona Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Candace Carr Strauss said.
According to the Sustainability Alliance, there are over 100 businesses certified “sustainable” throughout Sedona and the Verde Valley.
Sky Ranch Lodge is one of those businesses. Atop Airport Mesa, the lodge features native landscaping, 18 garden zones and a multitude of deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses and succulents.
“We have really incorporated the natural landscape instead of bulldozing,” Dan Smith, the Sky Ranch Lodge director of horticulture, said.
The lodge is striving to be more sustainable by being conscious with water use, making rooms more efficient with new heating and cooling system installations and limiting the use of chemicals on plants. When tending to the plants, there are no chemicals, fertilizers or weed spray used.
Sky Ranch Lodge’s garden aims to aesthetically display a diversity of vegetation and create a sense of well-being while providing an opportunity to observe and admire nature.
Visitors can roam any of the 18 garden zones. Each zone is self-watered and monitored by battery timers to conserve water. Plants are grouped together according to water needs.
Anna-Marie Tribble, assistant director of horticulture for the Sky Ranch Lodge, encourages visitors to utilize the lodge’s outside amenities and take full advantage of the environment.
“It is important to be outside, enjoy nature and be as low impact as we can,” Tribble said. “We want our guests to see the beauty and put people back within themselves aside from technology.”
For Earth Month, Sky Ranch Lodge is offering self-guided garden strolls. Additionally, kids can complete a botanical gardens scavenger hunt.
Friends of the Verde River, a member of the Sustainability Alliance, continues to educate residents and visitors about the health of our waterways. This summer, they are launching a new program called River Friendly Living, to create a baseline for water sustainability in our region. Further details about this program will be announced in July of this year.
Earth Day will be the first day of the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival. This year, it will be held as a hybrid event, offering small in-person guided tours as well as online workshops and live videos that anyone can access.
“We are very excited that we will be hosting the 21st annual Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival from April 22 to 25. This event engages with hundreds of locals and visitors to celebrate the amazing number of local and migratory birds that depend on the Verde River system,” Isaac Dudley, Friends of the Verde River development coordinator, said.
Friends of the Verde River is also launching a community BioBlitz to go along with the Birding and Nature Festival. A BioBlitz is a way to document wildlife from your phone. Individuals can take pictures of the creatures in their yard or community and submit them to support citizen science. For information about how to get involved, visit VerdeRiver. org.
While some businesses are hosting one-day events, other organizations are committing an entire week to sustainable practices.
The Rotary Club of Sedona Village is focusing on a Week of Service Rotary International has April 17 to 24. It is working with the Rotary Clubs of Sedona and Cottonwood-Verde Valley on a goal of cleaning up 1,000 pounds of trash in that week.
“This Earth is what we’ve got, and we need to preserve and help however we can to be part of sustaining it for the future. One of the initiatives of Rotary worldwide is to protect the environment,” said Heather Hermen, president-elect for the Rotary Club of Sedona Village and chairwoman of the Community Service Committee. “We’re committed to supporting activities and efforts to strengthen conservation and protection of natural resources, advance sustainability, and foster harmony between the community and the environment.”
For more information on Earth Month events taking place, residents can visit sedonaearthmonth.com.
