The Association of Texas Soil & Water Conservation Districts and Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board are working in collaboration with several state agencies and organizations in Texas to highlight the importance of voluntary land stewardship in the state.
Soil and Water Stewardship week is set for next week—April 24-May 1—and the focus this year is “Land Stewardship Produces a Healthy Texas.”
“Land management in rural areas directly affects the water quality and quantity for the 20 million Texans living in urban areas,” Rickey James, president of the Association of Texas Soil & Water Conservation Districts (TSWD) said in a news release. “When we ably manage our resources on private lands, we enhance the water availability for everyone in the state. Essentially, private lands provide a great deal of benefit to the public.”
About 95 percent of land in Texas is privately owned and land conservation is vital in keeping state resources healthy. It’s important for farmers, ranchers, timber and other agricultural landowners to implement conservation plans for their operations, James noted.
“Soil health is defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans,” James said. “It is important to remember that soil contains living organisms that perform functions required to produce our food and fiber.”
James said land stewardship can extend into urban areas as well through new trends to implement land stewardship concepts into their own backyards, such as urban agriculture, urban farming, native landscaping and community forests.
For more information visit, http://www.tsswcb.texas.gov.