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The Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA) of 1978 designated federal funding for natural resource Extension comprehensive programs to sustain and address emerging renewable resources on forest and rangelands and to develop innovative projects that can be replicated with other entities and institutions. Texas A&M University, the state’s land-grant university, typically receives a portion of this funding, which is routed through Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service to Texas A&M NRI, who administers the funds. The funding supports Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Specialists and other personnel within both NRI and the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management (RWFM) in implementing programs and creating educational resources that address priority areas identified by RREA.

While the current RREA National Strategic Plan identifies 9 priority areas, we are focusing our efforts on the 5 that most closely align with the mission and vision of NRI and RWFM. These are:

Fish and Wildlife Habitat: Because more than half of the nation’s forests and rangelands are in private ownership, the actions taken by private landowners have a critical bearing on the nature, type, and extent of fish and wildlife habitat.

Generational Succession: Uncertainty about the future transfer of family forest or rangeland enterprises is becoming more commonplace. Increasingly, family natural resource enterprises are struggling with succession plans for the next generation – whether that next generation is within the family or simply the next owner.

Wildfire Prevention: Wildfires threaten lives, destroy property, and disrupt agricultural production. Wildfires also alter the ecological functioning of native forests and rangelands as they increasingly occur outside their natural ranges of frequency, intensity, and size, driven by both historical land-use policies and novel climatic conditions.

Landowner Engagement: More than half of the forests and rangelands in the United States are privately owned. Thus, engaging landowners with natural resource professionals in decisions about their land is essential for addressing resource management concerns from forest health to local economies.

Public Awareness/Youth Engagement: Forest and rangeland resources are important to the economic and environmental well-being of both urban and rural communities. However, the public’s knowledge and in-depth understanding regarding production, sustainability, and the links between ecosystem services and social well-being are limited.

 

Key Programs

Several high-profile conservation programs have had their start in RREA funding. These are projects which have endured for years, reached hundreds of people and had statewide (or in some cases, nationwide) impacts. Notable examples include:

  • Texas Master Naturalist Program: With 48 local chapters in 213 counties, TMN seeks to develop well-informed volunteers who bring natural resource education, outreach, and service to their communities in the state of Texas.

  • Generation Next: A curriculum targeting new landowners, those who are inheriting land, or those who are looking to start a new agricultural operation on an existing ranch.

  • Texas Land Trends: The Texas Land Trends project monitors the status and changes in land use, ownership size and land values of working lands.

  • Texas Brigades: The Texas Brigades—which began with the Bobwhite Brigades—are a series of summer camps connecting youth with land management and conservation.

 

RREA Project Leads

NRI works with several specialists within Texas A&M University, including:

  • Marcus Blum: Marcus Blum, Ph.D., joined the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service as the statewide wildlife specialist and assistant professor in the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management in 2025. Blum’s work focuses on mitigating negative wildlife interactions and damage, especially related to feral hogs and predators. In addition to resolving negative impacts for landowners, Blum helps landowners achieve specific wildlife management goals through ongoing research that addresses real-world challenges specific to regional ecology and habitat. Prior to this role, Blum was a research scientist with the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, where he worked with numerous big game species ranging from moose to mule deer.

  • Chase Brooke: Chase T. Brooke joined the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management as a small acreage wildlife management program specialist in March 2023. Located at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Stephenville, his duties include developing, implementing and evaluating programs for small acreage property and wildlife management. He previously worked as the AgriLife Extension agriculture and natural resources agent in Collin County. During his time with Texas A&M AgriLife, Brooke has received awards and recognition from Texas Farm Bureau, the National Association of County Agricultural Agents, the Texas County Agricultural Agents Association and other organizations. Brooke is also pursuing a doctoral degree in rangeland, wildlife and fisheries management under the direction of Morgan Treadwell, Ph.D. His research is focused on developing a better understanding of the impact of burning woody plant debris piles on soils and vegetation and how pile size, fuels and weather can be manipulated to reduce their long-term scarring and disturbance on rangelands. By conducting this research, Brooke hopes to develop science-based management recommendations for the construction and disposal of brush piles across Texas.

  • Megan Clayton: Dr. Clayton is a Professor and Extension Range Specialist for the Texas AgriLife Extension and Research Center at Uvalde, TX. She developed Generation Next and is most recently responsible for Plant Party, a series of quarterly webinars focused on providing advanced plant training to agency professionals, volunteers, and land managers.

  • Stacy Hines: Dr. Hines is an Assistant Professor and Extension Rangeland Habitat Management Specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Research Center at Corpus Christi, TX. She currently leads the Texas Plant Phenology Project (Triple-P), a train-the-trainer project that creates a network of citizen scientists with the skills to teach and coach Texas youth in plant identification and range contests.

  • Elizabeth Tidwell: Elizabeth Tidwell joined the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management as a small acreage wildlife program specialist in January 2023. She is based out of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Uvalde with a focus area in the Hill Country. Tidwell provides support and collaborates with extension agents, land managers, organizations and other specialists on creating educational programs and training with a special focus on small acreage management. She serves as a coordinator for Birding with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, which connects people to the land through the experience of birding.

  • Morgan Treadwell: Dr. Treadwell is a Professor and Extension Range Specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at San Angelo, TX. Her current interests include prescribed burning, integrated approaches for brush management, livestock grazing management, population plant ecology, and youth natural resources education. Most recently, she organized the Great Plains Fire Summit, a conference aimed at bringing together those who use, regulate, respond to, and live with wildland fire in the Great Plains and to share knowledge, build partnerships, and improve communication.