News & Updates
A gift for Texas: Collins family donates easement on 531 acres in Williamson County
More than 50 years ago, Michael Collins and his father bought land north of Liberty Hill, drawn to the river that cut through the property and the old log home that stood there. They evicted the goats bedding down in the house and renovated it, and the Collins family...
Big opportunities lie ahead for green infrastructure in Texas
Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions are essential to creating flood resilient communities in Texas. Traditional gray infrastructure techniques such as dams, levees, and channels, capture water and push it downstream. On the other hand, green infrastructure...
Bamberger – A strongly rooted legacy
As a child, J. David Bamberger grew up in an Ohio family without electricity or running water. Each day his mother sent him to the neighbor’s farm with a bucket to pump water from their well. “When you’re that age, walking a quarter-mile back home with a bucket full...
Coronavirus hits already struggling Texas farmers and ranchers
Coronavirus has hit U.S. farmers and ranchers hard — to the point where they’ve stopped saying “it can’t get worse.” Burnet County ranchers are seeing those hard-hitting effects by the day. Auction sales are down significantly at the Lampasas Cattle Auction, according...
Austin Parks adds new restrictions to hike-and-bike trail to combat COVID-19
The city has announced even mores changes for the Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail. In the weeks since Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt rolled out Stay Home/Work Safe measures to help combat the novel coronavirus, the 10-mile trail has become...
Born to rewild: why now is the perfect time to make your lawn an eco-paradise
Chances are, your lawn isn’t natural, environmentally healthy, or necessary – but it is part of a prevalent national standard. Americans spend an estimated $36bn on lawn care annually, and the amount of lawns we maintain could roughly cover the state of Florida....
Expanding efforts to keep ‘cows over condos’ are protecting land across the West
Across the West, a growing number of ranchers and farmers are seeking such “conservation easements” to stave off the big-box stores, self-storage complexes and residential construction consuming millions of acres of fertile open space. From Montana’s sagebrush steppe...
April’s International Dark Sky Week urges homebound families to “look up together”
Press Release: International Dark-Sky Association - For Immediate Release: April 9, 2020 During International Dark Sky Week, April 19-26, the International Dark-Sky Association invites you and your family to engage with dynamic authors, educators, artists, and...
Director’s Notes – April 2020: Community resilience
Dear Hill Country Neighbors, If there is one thing that the past several weeks have taught us, it is the power and importance of resiliency. Whether we’re talking about our region’s ability to weather cycles of drought and intense rain, or our ability to adapt to an...