Houston Regional Group - News

The Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP), which has been surrounded by timber company land for the past 33 years, will be stripped naked of this protective buffer by the end of this year when Temple-Inland (TI) sells off 1.1 million acres in East Texas to fund the break-up of the corporation into three different companies. Due pressure from corporate raider Carl Icahn and Wall Street investors TI will divest itself of all of its timber lands; pay for the break-up with the funds from the land sales; and buy timber for its mills on the open, international, market. The last of the large timber companies in Texas is dead.

Important large tracts of ecological lands along the Neches River and adjacent to the Turkey Creek, Hickory Creek Savannah, and other units of BTNP are threatened by the divestiture. Smaller tracts of land which protect important ecological treasures like the Silky Camelia, Pyramid Magnolia, Azalea Canyon, and native prairies are also at risk and need acquisition to save diversity in East Texas. This truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity to expand BTNP and protect its boundaries.

The Big Thicket Association, Sierra Club, Texas Committee on Natural Resources, and other environmental groups are working with the Conservation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and other land trusts in an attempt to buy as much of the environmentally sensitive and ecologically valuable lands that TI owns. But private monies will not be able to do this alone. Federal monies are needed.

Write or call immediately your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative and tell them you want forest legacy, land and water conservation fund, and other federal monies for acquisition of these valuable Big Thicket lands. Write or call:

1) Kay Bailey Hutchison, 1919 Smith Street, Suite 800, Houston, Texas 77002, 713-653-3456

2) John Cornyn, 5300 Memorial Drive, Suite 980, Houston, Texas 77007, 713-572-3337

3) Kevin Brady, 200 Riverport Drive, Suite 304, Conroe, Texas 77304, 936-441-5700

4) John Culberson, 10000 Memorial Drive, Suite 620, Houston, Texas 77024, 713-682-8828

5) Nick Lampson, 10701 Corporate Drive, Suite 118, Stafford, Texas 77477, 281-240-3700

6) Al Green, 7707 Fannin, Suite 203, Houston, Texas 77030, 713-783- 9234

7) Gene Greene, 11811 East Freeway, Houston, Texas 77029, 713-330- 0761

8) Sheila Jackson Lee, 1919 Smith, Smith Street, Suite 1180, Houston, Texas 77002, 713-655-0050

9) Ted Poe, 20202 U.S. Highway 59 North, Suite 105, Humble, Texas, 77338, 281-446-0242

For more information contact Brandt Mannchen at 713-664-5962 or brandtshnfbt@juno.com.

April 2007

Last updated:  03/31/2007.   Content © 1999-2007 by the Sierra Club.