Since 1998, people who manage, research and conserve pine rocklands have convened every other year to learn from one another about how to best manage this globally critically imperiled ecosystem. The 2022 conference is being organized by Miami-Dade County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands Program and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s Conservation Team.

This year, artist Xavier Cortada will discuss how to use art as a way to engage, educate and inspire the public around environmental conservation. Cortada is an artist, Professor of Practice at the University of Miami Department of Art and Art History (with secondary appointments in the university’s Miller School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and School of Law), and Artist-in-Residence at Pinecrest Gardens, where his studio, gallery, and socially engaged art practice are based. He was also recently appointed by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to serve as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for Miami-Dade County. Cortada’s work is particularly focused on the environment and is intended to generate awareness and action towards issues of global climate change. In 2008, he planted a green flag at the North Pole to reclaim it for nature and launch an eco-art reforestation effort as part of his mission to help restore native habitats for plants and animals. He will discuss his various projects that use art’s elasticity to engage, educate and inspire community members to work and learn together to solve our community’s problems.