David A. Todd

Jonathan Ogren

The Texas Landscape Project explores conservation and ecology in Texas by presenting a highly visual and deeply researched view of the widespread changes that have affected the state as its population and economy have boomed and as Texans have worked ever harder to safeguard its bountiful but limited natural resources. Covering the entire state, from Pineywoods bottomlands and Panhandle playas to Hill Country springs and Big Bend canyons, the project examines a host of familiar and not so familiar environmental issues. A companion volume to The Texas Legacy Project, this book tracks specific environmental changes that have occurred in Texas using more than 300 color maps, expertly crafted by cartographer Jonathan Ogren, and over 100 photographs that coalesce to fashion a broad portrait of the modern Texas landscape. The rich data, compiled by author David Todd, are presented in clearly written yet marvelously detailed text that gives historical context and contemporary statistics for environmental trends connected to the land, water, air, energy, and built world of the second-largest and second-most populated state in the nation. An engaging read for any environmentalist or conscientious citizen, The Texas Landscape Project provides a true sense of the grand scope of the Lone Star State and the high stakes of protecting it. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

Nature and People

The Texas Landscape Project

David Weisman

A city dweller’s vacant lot . . . A rancher's back forty . . . A hiker's favorite park . . . When the places that we love are threatened, we can be stirred to action. In Texas, people of all stripes and backgrounds have fought hard to safeguard the places they hold dear. To find and preserve these stories of courage and perseverance, the Conservation History Association of Texas launched the Texas Legacy Project in 1998, traveling thousands of miles to conduct hundreds of interviews with people from all over the state. These remarkable oral histories now reside in an incomparable online and physical archive of video, audio, text, and other materials that record these extraordinary efforts by veteran conservationists and ordinary citizens to preserve the natural legacy of Texas. This book holds stories from more than sixty people who represent a variety of causes, communities, and walks of life—from a West Texas grocer fighting nuclear waste to an Austin lobbyist pressing for green energy. Each speaks from the heart in personal reminiscences and first-hand accounts of battles fought for land and wildlife, for public health, and for a voice in media and politics. These impassioned accounts remind us of the importance of protecting and conserving the natural resources in our own backyards . . . wherever they may be. Records of the archive are available at the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Five dollars of the cost of this book goes to environmentally friendly materials and processes.

David A. Todd

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