Recent action

National forests worth a lot of green

Texas’ national forests, in addition to being a welcome respite from the city and a popular vacation destination for Texans, provide the state with a lot of valuable revenue.

Our September report, “Worth More Wild: The Value of Texas’ Roadless National Forests,” catalogues the many ways that roadless areas are worth more than the logs they could become. The report lays out the case for protecting roadless areas from logging, drilling and mining—not only for their natural beauty and intangible benefits, but for the actual dollar value these places represent. Lodging and rentals, drinking water, and wildlife watching in Texas forests and parks, are among the many revenue-generating activities that bring $8.4 billion to Texas annually.

We’re pushing Texas’ congressional delegation to support a law in Congress that would permanently protect roadless areas set aside by the Environment Texas-backed Roadless Rule of 2001.

Big Bend and other national parks in Texas help bring in $8.4 billion in revenue to the state each year.

New standards needed to reduce overfishing

In the coming months, federal officials will decide whether to adopt stronger rules to prevent overfishing off the nation’s shores.

Environment Texas is urging citizens to sign a petition to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The petition calls for adoption of rules that would do a better job of sustaining fisheries and hold companies accountable when catch limits are exceeded. Working with other members of Environment America, our federation of state-based environment groups, we released reports in October outlining the state of fisheries off the Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Click here to sign our petition to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Our mission

We all want clean air, clean water and open space. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress. That’s the idea behind Environment Texas. We focus exclusively on protecting Texas’ air, water and open space. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

Credits

Photos: Banner: Mike Norton, Shutterstock.com. First story: Jon Wiley, Creative Commons. 2nd story: Roni Lias, Shutterstock.com. 3rd story: Creative Commons. 4th story: staff. Recent Action page: Francisco Romero, Shuterstock.com.

Editor: Luke Metzger. Contributors: Cecily Anderson, Justin Boyles, Zach Cullimore, Matthew Curtis, Sara Landis, Ethan Lavine, Jenna Perry Leschuk, Ryan Moeckly, Leanna Nordstrom, Dan Platt, Nathan Proctor, Drew Stephan, Jenne Turner, Chris Wand.

Publications Director: Richard J. Hannigan.
Design: Public Interest GRFX (215) 985-1113

E-mail: info@EnvironmentTexas.org
Phone: (512) 479-0388