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[0:00—Intro]

BW: The Land Steward Podcast is brought to you by the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute. We have relatable conversations and share helpful resources for land stewards like you—no matter how you relate to the land. So, grab your hat and join us outside.

[0:28—Background]

BW: Hi and welcome back to the Land Steward Podcast. I'm your host BW and today we're going to talk about the legacy of the Longleaf Pine in Texas. In our last episode we were driving through Texas acknowledging the diversity of land use and how land changes so rapidly across the state. I reference the counties in the Texas Hill Country often because that's where our property is and it's that place in Texas that you just hold near and dear to your heart. It's something that you may not know about me is that many of my formative years were spent deep in the heart of East Texas. The sound of cicadas in the woods near the creek and the smell of hot pine needles in the heat of summer are definitely pillars of my childhood. So somewhere, though, in the heart of East Texas stands the remaining acres of the Longleaf Pine Forest. With tall, stately trees, lush grasses, forbs, and wildflowers, this iconic forest was historically and still is a very wonderful part of the state's natural heritage. Native Americans and European settlers derived food, medicine, and fiber products for their lives. Deer, turkey, quail, and other wildlife use the forest as habitat. Today, we use the forest for many of the same benefits, including recreation. The beauty and aesthetics of the landscape are truly inspirational. With the loss of so much of that forest acreage though, there's a resurgence to protect and conserve the remaining longleaf forests. So there's sharing of information and technology to assist some of the conversion of those lands and with the restoration and management projects that are happening in forests all across East Texas. The Texas Longleaf Team, they’re are a group of individuals, organizations, and agencies that share a very specific passion for this iconic species. When you meet some of these folks that are on the Texas Longleaf team, their excitement is absolutely palpable because they know what the future might look like and they know what it's going to take to be able to pull together, to rally with the community, to then get to the goals of some of these restoration projects. With the national resurgence of this species, Texas formed this implementation team. And the last count was about 188 members strong, so they worked together and they celebrate all the aspects of the longleaf pine. So today in the studio I wanted to maximize the time with Ms. Jenny Sanders who has been professionally and even personally a huge influence in my life just watching her as a communicator and somebody who truly understands the value of communication, education and outreach in a lot of our natural resources programs. I first met Jenny when she was working for the Texas Wildlife Association. She was a communications manager there and did some really impactful work, especially in youth education, but also just making sure that the mission of that organization stayed strong and impactful over years. And then I had the opportunity when I started teaching, and she was more of a prominent role within the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute. I had the opportunity to bring her into the classroom and to really talk to the students about her roles within the Texas Forest Service, within NRI, and then also in leading the Texas Longleaf team. So I am excited to bring you the voice of Jenny Sanders here in the studio today.

[Interview with Jenny Sanders—4:04]

BW: Welcome Jenny Sanders to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I cannot tell you how honored I am to have you sitting across from me to talk about the Texas land to talk about the Texas Longleaf Team and to talk about the efforts that you're doing right now.

JS: Well I'm excited to be here. I really appreciate you having me and it's always fun to get to talk about the things you love doing, so.  

BW: Yeah! Okay, so can you give me a quick overview of the Texas Longleaf Team and how it fits into the national initiative, the America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative?

JS: Sure, so Texas Longleaf Team is, represents the western edge of the longleaf range, which covers throughout the southeast from Virginia to Texas. We're a network, that western edge of a network of 18 implementation teams that are all working on a shared goal of restoring the Longleaf ecosystem throughout the range.

BW: Yeah. And thinking about even how big Texas is, usually we're talking about massive acreage numbers. And we have these restoration efforts, but you truly are thinking about that East Texas part flowing right into Louisiana and trying to make sure that those partnerships and collaboration, make the most sense where all of those landowners are. And I'd like to share, I'll share a map with our listeners so they can see where some of that range is. So can you talk a little bit about what it's been like working with those landowners right there on that Western edge?

JS: Yeah, it's been great. You know, Texas is such a huge state, as you say, and most people in Texas don't even realize even realize we have forests. You know, people think of the Hill Country and that being the trees that we have in Texas, but we really have forests. We have pine trees. And so for me, having worked in various parts of the state, mostly the southern and western parts where you don't have many trees, it's been really cool to learn about the different culture in East Texas and the dependence on the timber industry and how management of land is so much different in this part of the state and then speaking to and looking at that there's a lot about East Texas that's much more similar to Louisiana and some of our other partners to the East than we even are to the rest of Texas.  

BW: The cultural context of that and thinking about East Texas, we probably have more diversity in Texas in terms of ecoregions than any other state -

JS: Absolutely.

BW: - and when we think about East Texas that like the brawny soil the hard clays like everything is different but when you think about there being forest in Texas like that is it's just not something that comes to mind when you think of our amazing state the great state of Texas. So I love that you're working one in these areas and that you're also having to build different types of relationships because the culture in East Texas is just different. They're managing differently, the activities there are different, even the importance of land alluding to the Texas timber industry and how recreation fits into that, all of it's different. One of the really cool stories that I remember from someone working with NRCS, they were working with a landowner who owned cattle and he used cattle to help manage some of the vegetation and the invasive species in the woods. And I don't think I had ever imagined ever the idea of cattle running in the woods and not in pastureland.   

JS: And historically when you look at some of the historic photos, and this is where longleaf gets so exciting and fun to me, is that when you look at East Texas right now, it's a whole lot of plantation style forestry. You know, it's kind of like looking at a Bermuda grass pasture in other parts of the state. It's a monoculture. And you can't even imagine using that land for much other than growing trees, which it does very well. But the uniqueness of the longleaf ecosystem is it allows so much more sunlight down to the forest floor, it's more open, there's so much greater diversity of plants, not as much of that invasive mid-story yaupon and sweet gum and stuff like that. And so you can actually visualize what it must have looked like 100 years ago with cattle grazing under the trees and turkeys roaming and quail even. You don't see any of that now.

BW: Yeah I mean it’s a stunning visual when you think about the different wildlife species and what that historic range must have looked like. So for people who are listening that may not be completely familiar with what makes the longleaf pine ecosystems so unique, do you want to talk a little bit about how vital those ecosystems are? We can talk about, you know, ecologically vital and important, historically, you talked a little bit about how the culture is different, you want to talk a little bit about the biodiversity that's there in those ecosystems?

JS: Yeah. So the other thing that I think is really cool about longleaf is, and this may be another map you could show when you put this up, but if you look at historic lightning patterns –

BW: Oh my gosh.

JS: - throw a little curveball at you. Lightning patterns, cloud to ground lightning - and there's maps that you can look at that show the historic patterns - the highest density of lightning strikes correlates almost perfectly on that southeastern geography with the historic range of the longleaf pine. So why is that important? So that's important because longleaf pine is adapted to fire dominant ecosystems. Before humans were so densely populated fire happened. And we didn't suppress that fire, there was nobody there to suppress it and so lightning strikes created fire and so what survived? It was the species that could survive those fires and that's where you see the longleaf historically being. And so that's the that's the most important part of the ecosystem is it requires fire. And so not only are these trees adapted to fire, they really need it to survive. And so when we have reintroduced prescribed fire in a very planned out, thoughtful way, you not only have the tree - and this tree is just a tree - but it's the ecosystem around the tree that's so important in our restoration efforts. You plant the tree, you reintroduce fire into the landscape it creates just all these plants that are dependent on fire as well, and then what follows is a diversity of wildlife and it's just it's a really it's a really cool system.

BW: Like fascinating.

JS: It is fascinating and you know one of the most the coolest little tidbits that you hear all the time is: it is the most diverse ecosystem second only to the rainforest.

BW: Oh my gosh.

JS: And we have it right here in Texas.

BW: Yeah, in Texas, in East Texas that people could actually go and see what that looks like and see what it used to look like years and years ago. That's incredible. And I could actually sit here and listen to you talk about this forever and ever because you have not only, you have this ability to tell the story on why this is cool but to also show us scientifically like why this matters and why it's important, and I think that's why you're so good at working with these landowners to help them know they're supported but there's also resources that are out there and that what they're doing matters and it's important to keep that land the way that it is, and intact, and to use those resources that are there to support them. I do want to know what drew you personally to this work, because I feel like you're tied to East Texas at some point and sometimes in conservation and natural resources. We have these, I talk about this a lot too, the Hill Country is important to me because that's where our historic property is and it's something that I'm super passionate about and something that I connect to, I feel like some days on a cellular level, but I feel like I hear some of that in your voice as you're talking about this. So what drew you to this work personally?

JS: Well, it's kind of a circuitous story. My story is kind of crazy actually. I grew up, my dad was a wildlife biologist. He worked for the A&M system. Well, he worked initially for private landowners and then in his mid-40s went back to school, got his masters and was a wildlife specialist for Extension. So all that time growing up with my dad, we lived on ranches in the Hill Country and then in far West Texas, but he was a wildlife biologist at heart. And so we were, you know, I grew up gathering cattle on horseback, and my dad bailing off the horse to show me, "This is sideoats grama. This is the state grass of Texas." And just interesting things, and it really solidified my love for the outdoors and ecosystems. And so I followed his path, and I have a range degree from A&M and wildlife Masters. So I've always been involved. You mentioned I worked for Texas Wildlife Association. I've always been more in the outreach and education side of things, and now I do a lot of policy work as well. Started out in the Hill Country, spent time in in far West Texas, and then when my husband and I got together, and he's a wildlife biologist also, keeping it all in the family, he worked on a ranch in South Texas. And so I've kind of made this path all across Texas, but his roots were in East Texas, and so eventually his job and family drew us back to East Texas. And at the time I was working for Land Trust, and that was kind of, that job was kind of coming to an end, and this kind of fell in my lap, and I knew nothing out forestry. But I knew about ecosystems and I had worked with landowners and it was a good fit and I just had a steep learning curve but that's it also illustrates the beauty of this partnership. And we didn't talk real specifically about that, but we call this the Texas Longleaf team because it's a team. We are funding-wise, a very slim entity. I'm a part-time employee. We have one other part-time employee. Everything else is volunteer and partnership driven. And so whether it's Texas A&M Natural Resource Institute or Texas Parks and Wildlife or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or NRCS, Texas A&M Forest Service is one of our major partners. There's people doing all parts of it. And so when it says I'm the coordinator, I'm the coordinator. I'm you know helping to figure out for each landowner that we come in contact with what resources do you need? Do you need a forester to come out and see if this is the right tree for your piece of ground? Do you need NRCS to come look at your soils and see if that's going to be a fit? Are you more interested in wildlife? Would parks and wildlife be the point of contact for you to talk about not only what tree needs to be planted, how that ecosystem restoration happens, but also how do you get your managed lands deer permits? So me not having a background in forestry turned out to be –

BW: Just fine.

JS: - not important because I have all this other expertise and they're way better at it than I am. But I think that's the beauty. I've kind of come full circle here. It's the beauty of why I love this so much, but also why I think the team is effective and why landowners really feel comfortable, because regardless of what your ultimate goal is, we can find the person, the team member, the resource, the financial backing to help you get done, what you need to get done.

BW: Yeah, which is sometimes the make it or break it part of being a landowner. If you have one person to go to that says, “These are the resources that exist just for you, tailor-made for your property and your goals and your bottom line,” that changes everything. I mean and you guys are working so intensively with the people that are in East Texas in those ecosystems and, to your point, because you have that background, your background puts together all the puzzle pieces so that you can have a better understanding and build a relationship based on trust, mutual understanding, and the goals that they have so that then you can connect them to the right resources. You mentioned goals for the landowners. Can you talk a little bit about the like - what the goals are right now for TLT?

JS: Yeah, so we are guided by a conservation plan. We're actually in our… the end of a five-year cycle, we're working on reorganizing those goals and regrouping and launching for the next five years. It follows the conservation plan of America's Longleaf Conservation Initiative, which is that larger network of teams and the larger initiative.

Our goals are to establish 1,000 acres per year of new longleaf stands and then to maintain through fire, mid rotation practices, thinning, herbicide, mechanical as needed, another 5,000 acres per year. And so just incrementally being able to build out the existing longleaf, keep that managed, and then add more acres every year, those are our goals. Beyond that, you know obviously in how we achieve that is through outreach and education, not only to landowners but to our partners, keeping new employees aware of what the process is for getting funding to landowners, you know, the best new information about restoration of the ecosystem and management of the ecosystem. So we do a lot of outreach and education and then administering those grants. And of course what I do a lot of is finding more money. It's an expensive undertaking to take a degraded system and restore it to the way nature made it. And so I'm so encouraged and It's exciting to see more and more investment that's coming in and the understanding that what these landowners are doing is not just for themselves, it has societal benefits. So, healthy watersheds have downstream benefits to communities. These healthy ecosystems sequester and store carbon better than a degraded ecosystem. Of course, the wildlife benefits that we all benefit from are huge. So it's neat to see, and we can talk about that probably more later, but most of our funding comes from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. And that is a, they bundle funding from private and public entities. And a lot of that funding is coming from companies, like international paper.

BW: Right. [laughs]

JS: You know, and it's so cool to see a paper company that says, "Hey, we understand that we don't have paper without healthy forests, and so we're going to invest in restoration and revitalization of healthy forests.” We've gotten funding from Microsoft and Google and Meta who have campuses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They're using water from the Trinity River and so they're giving back to ecosystem restoration on the Trinity River Basin because we've been able to show that that benefits the water table.

BW: Yeah. And yeah, you touched on it. I mean, my brain is firing a million miles an hour right now. One, just thinking about it, it's not a cheap endeavor.

JS: Right.

BW: No matter where you are in the entire, the restoration pipeline, whether you are funding the restoration efforts because you know that it benefits you as an entity or a company, whether you're a landowner that is looking at your piece of Texas and saying this probably isn't working the way that it is and I need to get back to that historical idea how the historical biodiversity that we used to have, especially in those longleaf stands in east Texas, and then the partnership side. You guys run a slim team that is not unusual for conservation organizations, even with NRI. Each of our teams are structured to be very efficient, they're slim all the time. And you find yourself in these situations where you see the value of the work, but you also have to work to continue to acquire that soft funding. Because it's not guaranteed, none of it is, but we do know the value of those restoration efforts. So that's incredible. You guys were also a, as you were talking, It reminded me, with Texan by Nature, you all are conservation wranglers. Are there, there were corporations that were involved in that, am I thinking of that right?

JS: Yeah, so the big deal, part of what we did with Texan by Nature, which that's a wonderful program, if you've got listeners that are conservation programs or projects, look into Texan by Nature. They work to amplify the impacts of local conservation efforts and part of what they do too is connect conservation with industry and corporations that have sustainability goals, and they're willing to do the things like funding projects. And they were how we were able to build this framework where our project was seen by Google and Meta and Coca-Cola as something that fit their philanthropy and sustainability goals. But one of the great things that they did, and we were one of the first groups that Texan by Nature did this with, is they created what they call the Return on Conservation Index. Those of us that are involved in conservation, we throw out these terms like biodiversity and carbon sequestration and wildlife habitat and corporations don't necessarily speak in those same terms.

BW: Right [laughs]

JS: What they speak in terms of is, what are my sustainability goals? What is the return on my investment? What is the ROI for me giving a dollar for conservation? And Texan by Nature was able to take our metrics that we use to say, I plant this many trees or I restore this many acres and turn that into: What is the return on conservation? What is the ROI for conservation investment?

BW: Which is game-changing.

JS: It's game-changing, and it has resulted in these investments into our work. So I really credit Texan by Nature. I think they're one of the most, if not the most effective group, really amplifying conservation in Texas right now. And, you know, I talk to these other groups in the rest of the longleaf range, and they say, "How do we do this?" I'm like, "Well, you're going to have to get a Texan by Nature because..."

BW: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, we've talked about Texan by Nature on the podcast before because they have either been involved in amplifying other organizations, or they have been a resource even for NRI whenever we're either looking to find an organization that will help us either grow awareness for an issue or even a resource especially for landowners. So we love working with Texan by Nature and I'm glad that they were able to help bolster a lot of these efforts. At least the initial efforts in connecting you guys to industry but also making it make sense on paper.

JS: Yes.

BW: Going back to this idea of quantifying on paper the value of what we see as really kind of just intrinsic to the land. You know, we know as biologists or people who came from biologists, we know what that value looks like and we can see it, feel it, smell it, we can be out there and experience it. But if you can't explain that on paper and the actual value, the dollar amount, like it means very little to those organizations or companies that and then turn around and fund. So that's huge. I do wanna talk a little bit about… you know, you work with landowners one-on-one often and they're obviously the main driver for a lot of this. If the landowner's not on board, then that's acreage that's left on the table that could be conserved or restored and be a part of the Texas Longleaf team program. What programs and incentives do you feel like you're talking with them the most about?

JS: So we have our own conservation, Texas Longleaf Conservation Assistance Program, and that's where a lot of this funding comes in and goes right out the door through us to landowners. And so what we fund is basically 50% of the cost of their restoration efforts.

BW: Wow.

JS: It's a reimbursement program, much like Farm Bill programs, EQIP. They apply through us, it's a competitive program, we rank those, our team goes through and ranks those projects and and then if they're approved they pay for the work, we reimburse them. And like I said it's about 50 % of the expense and you think about it, I mean it can be upwards of $350 to $400 an acre, just in the initial layout costs to restore these ecosystems. And I say restore these ecosystems, that’s really biology. You know, most landowners don’t care about that. Or they do but may not have it in those terms. Again, speaking to what terms speak to different groups.

BW: And thinking about what that means for their bottom line.

JS: Yeah, they’re replanting replanting a forest after a final harvest, and they can either go back and do what's traditionally been done for the last 30 or 40 years, which is loblolly, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with loblolly. Loblolly is what's fueled our timber economy, which is huge in Texas. Very important industry. They can do that, and they could get assistance for that. But if they have goals that are more focused on, maybe it's wildlife viewing, maybe it's hunting, maybe it's, hey, I just wanna get out and ride my buggy through my trees while they're growing for the next 25, 30, 40 years. You know, you're thinking about this like an investment, do I wanna just have an investment and amplify and maximize that investment and turn it around as soon as possible? That's one set of goals. There's a lot of landowners, and you see it with NRI’s Land Trends work, there's a lot of landowners out there now, some of them are what I call “reborn to the land.” Maybe they had roots in the land and now they've either come back to family property or they've bought their own little piece of Texas. Their goals are a lot different. Most of them still need to pay the bills. And so that timber investment is really important to them, but they want to utilize that property for multiple uses while that investment is maturing. And so that's where longleaf can really fit a unique place for those people. And so, we're there to help them through that process and when they say, “Hey we want to replant, I've heard about longleaf. I've heard it's the way this land was when maybe my grandpa had it or great grandpa or settlers before us, you know, we want to do that.” So, we come in, we connect them with the service providers. Obviously, we connect them with the funding, and from the moment they, you know four months before they're planting trees they're preparing the site. They're doing mechanical site prep. They're doing herbicide. They're doing a site prep fire. We get those trees in the ground and then you've got the beginning of an ecosystem. And our goal is to kind of be there with them throughout that.

BW: Yeah, so and what an incredible support system too to have you guys out there every step out of the way and to almost be on call, and I think sometimes people think of that and then see that as a negative thing but for you guys –

JS: Oh, our folks love it.

BW: - yeah I mean to be able to pick up the phone and say, “Hey Jenny, I have a question. What do I do here? What are my options? What are my resources?”

JS: There's that but then there's also the calls that are like, "Hey, I got my trees in the ground. You know, you want to come take pictures?" And we say, "Yes!"

BW: Yes, yeah. That, I mean, yes, 100% to be able to celebrate with them and to troubleshoot with them when there are situations that we can't control, because at the end of the day, we're working with nature and that's huge.

JS: Yeah.

BW: Yeah. And I love hearing about the experiences you have building those relationships with landowners and thinking about something else we also talk about on the podcast is how our generations of landowners and land managers are changing over time. And one of the big things that Dr. Roel Lopez taught me when I was learning about Texas Land Trends is thinking about that intergenerational land transfer and looking at the ways that we used to depend on the land. When people were, you know, they lived and breathed and that was their… that was their income, that was their livelihood. Thinking about those earlier generations and how their strategies look different because their needs were different and what today's landowners need. And some of the studies that we've done we've seen recreation go from the tenth reason why you might own land to being the first or second reason why you might own land. And that recreation looks different for everybody. They could be hunting, they could be wildlife viewing, it could be some sort of a venue situation. A lot of those extracurricular activities that we want are especially, you know, you and I both have kids, we have young boys, we want them to be outside. We want them to reconnect with nature and have those opportunities that maybe when we were growing up wasn't the first thing that our parents were thinking about. Growing up away from the land usually meant maybe the generations before you, that was their livelihood and they stayed on the property and never left, but at some point there was a shift and we were told to leave, go get an education, start a career somewhere else, and then you might find your way back to the land and to the property if it's still there, if it's something that you have the opportunity to do. And it just looks different now. The goals are different, and those relationships are different, and I think that there's a little bit, there's even more open-mindedness to being dependent, maybe on resources or organizations or agencies that have access to funding that can help in these situations. And I know that I've seen in your newsletter that you send out when these application periods come up. And I've told you before, I've forwarded those to all the people that I know in East Texas.

JS: Thank you, thank you.

BW: I think it's an amazing program and the application is not difficult. Even in the process of applying, I think there's value in knowing who those landowners are because that lets you know there's somebody in East Texas who owns property that either as longleaf or they're interested in longleaf. And let's say maybe the first year the application doesn't work out, it's still an opportunity for the future and you've made a connection.

JS: Yeah.

BW: And even if they don't join the major program, they're now in your sphere. And I feel like if you're on Jenny Sanders' radar –

JS: [laughs] Watch out.

BW: [laughs] - that's a good place to be for a landowner in East Texas. And I love thinking about the idea that there are people like you out there that are connected to these organizations that are there to host that relationship and to host that process, whatever it is that that landowner needs, which is a huge deal. Like that changes everything for the way that we think about Texas and keeps that land that we want to be conserved in conservation, rather than some of the alternatives that happen sometimes.

JS: Yeah. Well, the last thing we want is for somebody to say, “I just don't know what to do with this. I think I'm gonna sell it.” And if we can avoid that, we're always gonna try to do that. And I talk about our program - I had a meeting this morning with NRCS. There are so many other programs besides ours. And that's what we try to do is connect, and if you're not eligible for our program you're probably going to be eligible for another one. I talked about Texas A&M Forest Service. They've got a great, on their website, they've got the Texas Forest Funding Connector.

BW: Yep.

JS: And it's an amazing tool for not only landowners in East Texas, but all over the state. You plug in your address, and it will say what all resources, financial and otherwise, you're eligible for. Yeah.

BW: I love being able to think about how we can use technology to connect people. One, to those resources, but also just communities of people that are also dealing with the same thing. When we think about going back to this idea of this intergenerational land transfer the generations before us had a had a different connection to their communities too, and it's you know everyone thinks of the old men at the, the coffee shop in there – yeah.

JS: The feed store around the coffee… yeah the coffee pot at the feed store.

BW: Yes! And that's still like, I mean I love that visual and there's this idea that there are these landowners and ag producers that are still doing that that. But the younger generations of landowners or people who are “reborn to the land” have a different connection to their neighbors, if any connection at all.

JS: Yeah.

BW: So they lost that community connection that I feel like our earlier generations of landowners, especially in Texas, were completely dependent on. They learned from each other, they leaned on each other when they were in hardships, but they also got to see what success looked like for other people who were on the other side of the fence line. And those are personal relationships, you know? And I feel like we've lost some of that with these current communities. So just knowing that there are groups and organizations that landowners can depend on now and feel like they're rejoining that community, they're getting reconnected. You have been talking about the different organizations and of course all the different resources that come with them. I do want to know if you want to share some of—maybe some of those really successful projects or the success stories that come to mind that make you beam at the idea that you're a part of something like this?

JS: Yeah, so there's a number of them that pop in my head and I would direct people to our website, just Google Texas Longleaf Team, and we have a series of videos called Longleaf Landowner Stories, and each of those stories kind of personify some, you know, I can put a lot of our landowners in groups with these types, you know, we've got the family forest owner, we've got the generational landowner. We've got somebody who's really trying something new, a landowner that's looking at turning a hayfield into a long leaf stand, you know? And so I think of those people. But, you know, one of them in particular, I'll call out because he's, I know he's willing to be talked about. Well, any of these that we've got videos, but a guy named Blaine Morton came to us and he was one of these guys, he's just kind of your every man, had a career at the refineries around Houston, Beaumont area, retired, and just was dead set on finding his own little piece of Texas to have a place for he and his sons and grandkids to hunt. And they call it “The Farm,” they found 250 acres in San Jacinto County, and in the process that - they were mostly interested in hunting - and in the process of just kind of learning, they connected with Texas Parks and Wildlife, learning what it took, honestly, to create big deer is what he wanted. The guys at Texas Parks and Wildlife were like, "You know, you should look at longleaf.” They're absolutely on the edge of our range, but his neighbor had some longleafs, some old remnant, old growth longleaf, so it was naturally there. So Blaine's just slowly taking little pieces as he can. He doesn't want to get rid of all his forest, but he's doing prescribed fire. We talk a lot too about open pine management. So you can can have a loblolly stand and kind of simulate what longleaf is like by just opening up the stand, not having quite so many trees per acre and then introducing prescribed fire. And so Blaine has worked really hard and again he's one of those guys that just knows how to use his resources and he's so easy to help and fun to help because he's so passionate. And so they've restored about a 50-acre longleaf stand. It's doing great. He's now the president of the newly formed prescribed burn association in that area.

BW: Wow.

JS: Yeah, and it was his realization that, “I've got a fairly small piece of land. It's hard to get a contractor to come out here and burn it for me.” He was missing, you know, longleaf needs to be burned every two to three years in this part of the world to keep it vibrant and all the things we love about it. He was having a hard time getting contractors scheduled on a fairly small tract. And so he went and got trained himself. Again, Texas A&M Forest Service provided the training and then realized that there were other landowners just like him and so they started working together to burn each other's properties and you know, this guy has the fire truck, and this guy has the buggy, and this guy has the training and could be the burn boss. And so they started doing that and ended up now we have a prescribed burn association and he's the president. Blaine was recently last year was recognized as the Lone Star Land Steward award winner.

BW: Oh my gosh.

JS: And so yeah just fun stories like that.

BW: Yeah.

JS: We've got so many and the other one, another one that's on our on our website is the guy I mentioned that he had a hay pasture. And it's a generational property that has a variety of different types of habitat but he said, “I don't have any interest - my grandpa baled hay his whole life, my dad, my uncle baled hay. I just don't have any interest in that. I come out here, I hunt, grandkids come out.” He wanted a buffer between the highway and his house and he thought, "I wonder about longleaf."

BW: I love that.

JS: We said, "We can make that happen." And I think as a kind of a wildlife industry, it's those curious landowners that wanna push the boundaries and do new things that push us out of our box and create new initiatives and new programs. I mean, we had never thought about converting hay pastures into longleaf, but now that we are kind of seeing that I think we can do this, it's a huge opportunity for more restoration. And so, you know, those…

BW: And now you kind of have a blueprint for that, simply because they were curious and open to just changing the way that things were done and adapting it to their situation. So back to your point, he didn't say, "You know what? I don't want to do this. I'm going to sell it. Because I don't want to do what's always been done. What can I do differently?”

JS: Let me try something different.

BW: Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. Like it just makes you proud to be a part of that work.

JS: Yeah, it does.

BW: Which changes everything. So I have a couple more questions for you, but really I just wanna know, are there opportunities for volunteers to be a part of the Texas Longleaf Team or any of these restoration efforts if somebody wanted to get involved and learn more about it?

JS: Yeah, so one of the really cool volunteer opportunities is with the Big Thicket.

BW: Okay.

JS: The Big Thicket National Park, they do a planting, longleaf planting every year. It's in January and they're really trying to restore the Big Thicket from their kind of ground central of where they are. And so they do a longleaf planting every year. It's a cool that's one of the the main times I can think obviously you know we try to do festivals and you know that we just participated in a fire festival in Tyler –

BW: That’s so cool.

JS: - with Parks and Wildlife and it's called the Firing Nature Festival and it was an opportunity for just general public to come to the Tyler Nature Center and learned about the benefits of prescribed fire. And so, people that are interested in helping, I mean, there was everything from skins and skulls for little kids to look at. They actually did a fire demonstration. They did kind of a touch a truck kind of thing.

BW: Oh yeah!

JS: Where they had fire equipment and tractors and all that kind of stuff. So we always have kind of those educational and outreach opportunities for people that are interested, but those are the main ways probably.

BW: So if people are looking, are those on your website normally?

JS: We generally, yeah, will push those out on the website. And on our website we have an opportunity to sign up for a newsletter. So we do an e-newsletter once or twice a month with information on new articles that have come out or funding opportunities or events like that.

BW: Yeah, your newsletter is one of my favorite ones 'cause I feel like I get all the information that I need about updates that are going on. And of course I'm looking at it from a, am I missing anything that Jenny and the team are working on right now that we could share from NRI. But I'm also just, I just wanna know what's happening with the landowners in East Texas and the initiatives. And I learn so much every time I open that newsletter. So that's very cool. If you could share one last thing with our listeners, maybe landowners in East Texas or people who are curious about resources, what would it be?

JS: I would just say reach out to us, especially if you have any interest, regardless of whether you've ever thought about restoration of an ecosystem or even longleaf pine, if you have interest in finding out ways to manage your property for multiple use, for recreation, for whether it's bird watching or hunting or whatever, we’d love to talk to you. And we'd love to talk about whether maybe longleaf is a possibility. We're also working, we work real closely with the Northeast Texas Conservation Delivery Network. That's kind of the geography north of the longleaf range and they do a lot of the same stuff it's that open pine management. Sometimes it's shortleaf pine, sometimes it's loblolly pine that you're just working to reintroduce fire to the ecosystem. And so, you know, we can we can help out in a lot of ways as long as you're kind of east of the Trinity River. That's our… that's our place.

BW: Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing, one, your expertise, the stories. I feel encouraged if I owned land in East Texas that had longleaf pine, I feel like I would know exactly who I was going to call next. So thank you for joining. It's been an honor. I hope that you'll be on the podcast again soon.

JS: Certainly.

BW: Yeah.

JS: I'd love to. Thanks for having me.

[42:31—Outro]

BW: Hey there, it’s BW. I just wanted to say thanks for listening. We are so grateful for those of you who have been with us since episode one, and for those of you who continue to join us every single month. We’re also really grateful for the experts and partners who come on and share an immense amount of wisdom for the land stewards in Texas and beyond. So, remember to subscribe to The Land Steward Podcast when you have a second and shoot us a note if you ever have any questions about the resources and research that we share right here on the podcast. Until next time, we’ll talk soon.