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The Nature Conservancy in Texas Texas Places We Protect Ways of Giving Science Education Press Releases Join Us Field Trips/Events Contact |
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Trail dedication held at Southmost PreserveGeneral Motors funding provides new boardwalk and viewing platformBROWNSVILLE, Texas—September 6, 2006 —Rio Grande Valley wildlife enthusiasts joined Nature Conservancy staff members to celebrate the expansion and improvement of the resaca trail at the Conservancy’s Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve with a naming ceremony Tuesday morning, Aug. 29. Improvements to the Chevrolet Turk’s Cap Trail include a newly constructed boardwalk and viewing platform that will allow visitors a panoramic view of the seasonal 55-acre resaca, an oxbow lake that provides habitat for a tremendous variety of nesting and migrating birds and waterfowl, as well as turtles, snakes and frogs. Completion of the trail was made possible by a gift from General Motors and the General Motors Foundation, which gave $270,000 to the Conservancy’s Texas Program in 2004-2005 for this and other conservation projects around the state. “The improvements to the trail here on the resaca are of great value so people can learn about the importance of this habitat to a wide variety of animals and plants, including birds that depend on this resource as they migrate between Canada and Mexico and Central and South America,” said Sonia Najera, The Nature Conservancy’s South Texas program manager. “Southmost Preserve is part of a wildlife corridor used by rare and endangered animals that stretches from Falcon Lake to the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Gulf of Mexico. We are delighted that General Motors General Motors was represented at the dedication by Kirk Clark, CEO and president of Charles Clark Chevrolet in McAllen. “GM has been a longtime partner with The Nature Conservancy and this preserve is particularly important to the Valley and to Texas,” Clark said. “Today, we are happy to dedicate this new Chevrolet Turk's Cap Trail with its boardwalk and viewing platform that will serve as an excellent educational resource to visitors highlighting the importance of local and migratory species.” Dedication of the Chevrolet Turk’s Cap Trail was held at the trailhead. The trail follows the edge of the resaca and traverses a levee that crosses the lower end of the resaca, where black willow trees provide foraging for resident, wintering and migratory birds. The 1,034-acre Southmost Preserve lies at the southernmost tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande winds through the preserve along the Texas-Mexico border for 2 ½ miles. Amid citrus orchards and agricultural fields, the preserve contains habitat for rare and unusual animals, birds and plants, including sabal palms, Texas indigo snakes, ocelots and two rare bird subspecies, the Brownsville common yellow throat and the Lomita Carolina wren. In 1999, The Nature Conservancy bought the property from landowner Julia Armstrong Jitkoff to create a nature preserve. The land is being conserved and restored, and is part of a wildlife corridor stretching from Falcon Lake to the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Gulf of Mexico. Southmost Preserve also is the site of the Conservancy’s South Texas Native Plant Nursery, where native plants are grown and provided under contract to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Defense and the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program for habitat re-vegetation projects. The Nature Conservancy and General Motors have had a significant conservation partnership in Texas. GM has donated nine vehicles to the Conservancy to support the non-profit organization’s conservation work in the Lone Star State, including a Chevy Suburban for use at Southmost Public access to Southmost Preserve is available only through community programs, volunteer work days and appointments. To learn more, call (956) 546-0547. Photo downloads and captions: Southmost trail dedication - © The Nature Conservancy (JPG, 263kb) Southmost dedication boardwalk - © The Nature Conservancy (JPG, 343kb) _________________________________________________ The Nature Conservancy is an international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its nearly 1 million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped protect more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. In the Lone Star State, The Nature Conservancy of Texas owns 35 nature preserves and conservation projects and assists private landowners to conserve their land through more than 70 voluntary land-preservation agreements. The Nature Conservancy of Texas protects 250,000 acres of wild lands and, with partners, has conserved close to a million acres for wildlife habitat across the state. Visit The Nature Conservancy of Texas on the Web at nature.org/texas. General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest automaker, has been the global industry sales leader for 75 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 327,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2005, 9.17 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick,
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