The mission of the Hill Country Alliance is to bring together a diverse coalition of partners to preserve the open spaces, starry night skies, clean and abundant waters, and unique character of the Texas Hill Country.
Our Work
Land
The Texas Hill Country region covers over 11 million acres in 17 counties of mostly privately held land.
Water
Thirteen Texas rivers begin in the Hill Country and provide water for millions of downstream neighbors.
Night Sky
The Hill Country sits on the edge of night and as development pushes westward, we are losing our view of the night sky.
Community
90% of Hill Country lands are in unincorporated areas where there is little authority to plan for growth.
Collaboration
HCA serves as the backbone organization and fiscal sponsor of the Texas Hill Country Conservation Network.
Latest News
Texas Hill Country harvests No. 3 ranking among American wine regions
Sorry, Napa Valley. Apologies, Sonoma Valley. The Hill Country crushes both of those heavily hyped California destinations (like a grape) in a new ranking of the best wine regions. The Hill Country lands at No. 3 in the 2021 USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice awards for...
How this Texas town became one of America’s fastest-growing cities
In the not-too-distant past, motorists driving along a stretch of Interstate 35 just northeast of San Antonio were met with vast fields of wildflowers and grazing cows in grassy pastures. Today, the cattle are gone, replaced with clusters of sleek apartments, gated...
“We can’t have land back without water back”
Growing up in Sandia Pueblo, on the banks of the Río Grande in New Mexico, Julia Bernal heard tales about the world of her ancestors. Elders told her that the area was home to diverse flora and fauna, the likes of which she had never seen. The river used to overflow...
The key to slowing traffic is street design, not speed limits
On September 8, Wiley & Sons will release the second book in the Strong Towns series: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation. Chapter five is about building great streets and how it is essential, if we want places that are...
USDA invests $167 million in high-speed broadband in 12 states
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $167 million in 12 states to deploy broadband infrastructure (PDF, 360 KB) in rural areas without sufficient access to high-speed internet....
‘Nonfunctional’ grass to be banned in Las Vegas Valley
The days for much of the water-thirsty grass in the drought-stricken Las Vegas Valley are numbered. Nearly one-third of all of the grass in Southern Nevada will need to be removed by the end of 2026 under a new bill signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak Friday, a...
Climate change is intensifying the water cycle, new IPCC report finds
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of the world’s leading climate scientists, released its sixth climate assessment on Monday. The 1,300-page paper is the most comprehensive, up-to-date report yet on the physical science of climate change,...
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