According to “Texas Land Trends,” a report by the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, “Texas will experience the largest intergenerational land transfer and potential change in land use to date. Aging rural landowners in Texas will soon transfer working lands to younger generations and first-time landowners.” The report warns that these new landowners “may have less experience or connection with the land, lack basic knowledge of agricultural operations and management, or lack the financial capital to maintain the land once inherited.”
The Big Bend region is no exception. But in this merciless, arid environment, even experienced landowners can run into issues with how best to steward their lands. At the Water in the Desert conference at Sul Ross State University this past January, land stewardship expert Steve Nelle pointed out that in order to “prioritize success,” it is necessary to understand three major principles: the “land stewardship ethic (the heart),” a “knowledge of ecological principles (the mind),” and “selection/implementation of practices (the hands).“ According to Nelle, “too often we tend to jump to the work” before we know what we’re doing. “Genuine land stewardship” is really about “the relationship between a person and the land … It’s about applying [stewardship] techniques properly.”
Casey Wade, president and CEO of the Dixon Water Foundation and an Alamito Foundation board member, also participated on the land stewardship panel at the Water in the Desert conference. He worried that some landowners may not have a solid understanding of their environment and the need to “take advantage of every drop [of rainwater] that comes onto our land.” He emphasized that “it’s important to think holistically” about these complex systems when considering how to manage them. Landowners need to manage “toward a healthy system,” he said, “instead of managing away from things they don’t want, like mesquite and weeds.” The key is for landowners to have a healthy goal in mind instead of basing management decisions on negative aspects they want to eliminate.
Toward that end, the Alamito Foundation is partnering with the Dixon Water Foundation to offer “Far West Texas 101: A Workshop for Engaging the Land in Far West Texas” on Friday, August 2, at the USO/AmVets building in Marfa. Alamito Foundation Board Member Lynn Loomis is a soil scientist who worked with the USDA in Marfa for 31 years. He attributes the inspiration for the workshop to Garey Willbanks, owner of the Alamito Ranch in central Presidio County. Willbanks created the Alamito Foundation to provide educational opportunities to Big Bend youth and to “execute rangeland and riparian restoration projects on Alamito Ranch,” according to Loomis. “For years, Mr. Willbanks has owned a ranch in South Texas. He purchased the 3,500-acre Alamito Ranch in 2020. Since then, he has been learning how to run a ranch in the Chihuahuan Desert. The purpose of the Far West Texas 101 workshop is to introduce other new landowners to the complexities of the Chihuahuan Desert and help them reach their land management goals more quickly.”
The Dixon Water Foundation is co-sponsoring the event, according to Philip Boyd, vice president of science and research, because Dixon “was started with a goal to help conserve water resources in the state of Texas, with an emphasis on how what happens on the ground impacts both the surface and underground water cycles.” The Dixon Water Foundation “also stewards two ranches along the Alamito Creek watershed [which] … extends from the foothills of the Davis Mountains, where one of our ranches is located, down through the Alamito Valley and all the way to the Rio Grande. It is such a large and important watershed … that we thought it could benefit from a collective conservation effort … This workshop seemed like a great opportunity to discuss the ecology and character of this area in a way that would be constructive towards these conservation goals.”
Workshop participants can look forward to presentations on how the climate of Far West Texas differs from the rest of the state, how to quickly access soil and weather information, and how the vegetation in the Big Bend region has changed (or not) from the 1880s to the present, among many other fascinating topics.
The program will also include an optional field trip to the Alamito Valley on Saturday, August 3,, where participants can witness some practical applications of the knowledge covered at the workshop.
Visit www.alamito.org/fwt101 to register and learn more.
Trey Gerfers is a San Antonio native and serves as general manager of the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District. He has lived in Marfa since 2013 and can be reached at tgerfers@pcuwcd.org.