Nature Conservancy gets $14 million donation, makes big land buy by Kim McGuire, September 29, 2016, Houston Chronicle
The Nature Conservancy announced Thursday it has received a $14 million donation to acquire more than 3,700 acres of land in Texas and Arkansas. The donation is believed to be the group’s largest for land acquisition in Texas.
In Texas, the group has purchased more 1,900 acres of forestland in Brazoria County between the Brazos and San Bernard Rivers.
The property sits in the middle of a region known as the Columbia Bottomlands, an area of old-growth forest that serves as a critical stopover for more than 200 species of migratory birds.
The donation was made by BHP Billiton, an Australian oil and mining company that has operations in the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.
With the money, the group will establish two new preserves near West Columbia.
[Refer also to:
State to Buy 69,000 Acres in Adirondacks
I am appalled by the idea that the Nature Conservancy of Canada has allowed the recent drilling activity on the donated Hutchinson lands just north of Big Hill Springs Park.
I guess in Alberta oil drilling/fracking must qualify as “ranching use”. Besides the obvious land disturbance, the noise level of the drilling is to be heard from a few kilometres away until about 2 a.m. each morning. So I guess I don’t have to wonder if any deer, or moose, will still be found on these lands from now on . . . perhaps the most meaningful part of Hutchinson’s Nature Conservancy now will be the fact that no more moose/deer will be killed crossing that particular stretch of highway. Hence forward it will be “human fatalities only” when cars/trucks will come flying over the hill, just to find themselves having to brake last minute for the tractor trailers approaching the road turn off.
What has our province come to? [Emphasis added]