I began applying research on local ecological knowledge to protected area management and interpretation in 1997-98 with the Keekonyokie Maasai and Dorobo around Hell’s Gate National Park/Oloor Karian, Kenya. In 2000, I applied this data to the exhibit Maasai for the international non-governmental organization (NGO) Cultures and Communications, which received nearly one million visitors in Han-Sur-Lesse, Belgium. Starting in 2001, I started working with the NGO The Mountain Institute (TMI) on various interpretive and educational projects with indigenous and other peoples inside and around mountainous protected areas including Hawai‘i Volcanoes, Mount Rainier, Yosemite, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and various National Historic Sites on Hawai‘i Island.

Since 2004, I collaborated with TMI to apply my doctoral research with the Khumbu Sherpa living inside Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park and Buffer Zone, Nepal. These applications included collaboration on the project Livelihoods along Beyul Trails funded by the Ford Foundation Asia. This project focuses on integrating place-based spirituality into tourism development, local education, and resource management. In 2008, I initiated several new projects with Southern Paiute/Chemehuevi, Western Shoshone, Owen’s Valley Paiute, and Mojave peoples that live in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California, U.S.A. These initiatives focus on government-to-government consultation, interpretive program planning, and collaborative resource management in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Desert National Wildlife Complex, Nevada Test and Training Range, Nellis Air Force Base, and Marjorie Barrick Museum at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.