TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Jim Neal (JN)
INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW)
DATE: October 24, 2000
LOCATION: Nacogdoches, Texas
TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson
REELS: 2125 and 2126

Please note that the videos include roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Numbers correlate with the time codes on the VHS tape copy of the interview. “Misc.” refers to various off-camera conversation or background noise, unrelated to the interview.

DT: My name is David Todd and I’m here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. And we are in Nacogdoches, Texas on October 24th, the year 2000. And we have the chance to visit with Jim Neal who is a wildlife biologist and ecologist trained in entomology currently working for the Fish and Wildlife Service but has also worked for Parks and Wildlife and for the Nature Conservancy and even the Corps of Engineers. A lot of experience and a lot of contributions to our understanding and protection of bottomland hardwoods. And I wanted to take this chance to thank you for spending some time with us.
0:01:33 – 2125
JN: Thank you David.
DT: I thought we might start by talking a little bit about your childhood and if there are any people or events that might have influenced your interest in the outdoors.
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JN: Yeah. Well, as a child I grew up in Sabine County in deep East Texas and I was—I mean it was in a very rural area, a lot of hunting and fishing activities that went on in the—in the vicinity and that’s how I or—originally got involved in conservation is through—through various people, friends and relatives who took me out fishing, hunting, squirrel hunting and that’s how I sort of got the bug.
DT: Were there early trips that you can recall?
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JN: Boy Scouts, some awful trips where we’d go out and freeze our asses off and we wake up in the morning not in tents, frozen toes, frozen shoes. But, you know, somehow it—it sunk in that it was pretty neat to be out in the out of doors. And my parents, they—my father was a—a gardener and liked plants and my mother was a birdwatcher so that probably also contributed to my getting into conservation—becoming involved with conservation.
DT: Were there any early readings that you had, books, articles, anything that might have inspired you?
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JN: One of the—one—I guess one of my earliest inspirations was “Silent Spring,” was the Rachel Carson book.
DT: Sure.
0:03:20 – 2125
JN: That—that made a huge impression on me. I think that was one of—and I am an avid reader so I think a lot of the readings of Rachel Carson, of Barry Commoner, of some of the other classics, Nevil Shute, “On the Beach”. Some of those things made—really made an impression on me and I think also got me involved in conservation.
DT: I understand that as you grew up you later went to Stephen F. Austin…
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JN: Went to Stephen F. Austin…
DT: …and got two degrees.
0:03:54 – 2125
JN: …yes, Bachelors and Masters degree.
DT: Were there professors there or…
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JN: There were professors there that, you know, that—that—and I really—I started out not really knowing what I was going to do, I mean, other than major in biology. I started out sort of in a pre-med tract but I didn’t think that was where I wanted to be and I think it was a lot of the—the—the professors here at—in Nacogdoches at Stephen F. Austin that—that’s—in—in the field courses that moved me in that direction.

DT: Were there field studies that you took up while you were at Stephen F. Austin that you can remember for us?
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JN: Ornithology, mammalogy, vertebrate natural history and eventually I got my degree in entomology working on beetles associated with mushrooms, very arcane, useless vocation.
DT: But one that…
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JN: But one that was interesting.
DT: …that introduced you I guess to an interrelated, interconnected ecosystem?
(Talking at same time)
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JN: And that—it—and it was. It’s—it’s a—it’s a little microcosm of an ecosystem—the mushroom itself and the—the things that were inhabiting it and eating it.
DT: And I understand as time went on, you sort of inflated your field from the world of mushrooms to much bigger systems, particularly bottomland hardwood.
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JN: Yes, yeah. And—and that—and that’s what I really started working on. My first real thing that I—that I—that—that I—my first real efforts in conservation were with bottomland hardwood forest ecosystems.
DT: I see. Well we’re in a bottomland forest here right on the Stephen F. Austin campus. Can you tell us a little bit about what makes this characteristic of bottomland hardwood and maybe some of the signs of how it functions and sustains itself?
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JN: Well this—this is—these are the bottomlands of the Lanana Creek, which flows through Nacogdoches. It is an overflow bottomland. I think, as you can see in—in the background and see in some of our—as we’re walking around here, there’s a lot of leaf litter. This is in the Fall of the year and we’re starting to get a lot of leaves coming down and that’s—that’s an important part of the bottomland ecosystem when the—when the—when the creek floods—when a river floods, a lot of those nutrients, the leaves, acorns, twigs, those things are washed into the creek and—and as a result, bottomland hardwood forests are some of the most productive systems in the—in the country, as a result of all those nutrients that are—that—that the floodwaters then bring back into the—into the stream.
DT: And productive in the sense of providing mast for wildlife?
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JN: Providing mast for wildlife, providing nutrients for the stream organisms. In—in a number of ways.
DT: Can you show us some of these trees that might have some signs of—of wildlife?
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JN: Sure. We ca—if we move over this way, the tree that—the tree that we see in front of us is an eastern hop hornbeam. And you see there’s a lot of—I don’t know what to call them other than little holes all up and down the tree. These were made by a sapsucker, which is a woodpecker. It’s a very unusual woodpecker that winters in these bottomland hardwood forests. Sapsuckers—actually what they do, they—they peck—they peck little holes in the tree, sap comes out and they feed off of the sap and off the insects that are feeding on the sap. So it’s an interesting relationship and, as I say, they’re kind of a—they’re kind of a—a weird, different kind of woodpecker, one that’s different than—than most of the ones that—that we see in the forest. Most of the ones we see in the forest are getting bugs out of dead trees.
DT: You mentioned that this is a hornbeam, can you tell us about some of the other species that you see here in the forest?
0:08:26 – 2125
JN: Some of the others that we see here in the forest, we’ve got in the—the background here, right—right behind us, is a water oak. It’s one of the—it’s one of the primary—it’s one of the primary species in the bottoms with—along with—along with willow oaks. We have a—right beside us here we have a—a sugar maple which is not typical of the bigger bottoms but in—found in higher sites in some of the smaller bottomlands. And this is—this is basically the same kind of tree that—that is found up in the Northeast in which maple syrup is tapped out of. Should we talk about the blow down a little bit?
DT: Please.
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JN: Right behind us, this—this—this woods is a—is an older growth forest. Right behind us we’ve got ex—examples of a blow down. There was a windstorm that came through this forest maybe six months ago and this is part of the result of it. There are a lot—a lot of large trees, large limbs that were blow down. That’s a natural part of the woodland cycle of the bottomland hardwood cycle. As a matter of fact, once this—once you get this blow down, a number of things happen. It opens up the over story, light is better able to—to penetrate to the—to the forest floor and then you get regeneration of new seedlings as a result of the seeds that have dropped down. The other things that happened is you have dead and down wood. There are a lot—large number of critters of reptiles, amphibians, mammals, insects that live in this dead and down wood. And that’s the thing about an older forest. You have this kind of stuff in it. Younger forests, you don’t have as much blow down, you don’t have as much opportunity for a number of different ecological niches that are present in older forests.
DT: Now you mentioned that there are over story trees and I guess also some of the under story. Can you explain maybe what role that plays in having different ages and sizes of trees?

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JN: Well it’s very important for—for diversity—for biodiversity to have multi-layers in the—within the forest because there are, for instance, a number of bird species which are found just in the canopy. There are some that are ground nesters and then there are some that are in the mid-levels of the forest. So—so multiple stories is very important for maximizing biodiversity.
DT: I see that you’ve also got a vine on one of these trees. Are vines a common part of the forest?
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JN: Large vines are—vines are part of bottomland hardwood forests. Larger vines—the larger diameter vines—that’s another way of telling that you have a system that’s older as when you get those large vines. It’s just another indication that you have an older growth forest. And maybe some of the other things are big trees. And we’ll walk—walk down this way. I’ll—I’ll spend a minute talking about the big trees in the forest. One of the largest is tree right in front of us, which is a cherry bark oak. You can see, this is a monster. It’s really a huge tree, an example of the kinds of things—the kinds of—kind of trees that you will see and the sizes of trees you—you will see in bottomlands—in older growth bottomlands.
DT: How old would you estimate this tree to be?
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JN: It’s—it’s very difficult. Interestingly enough, it’s very difficult to tell ages just by size, but this tree could be two hundred or more years old, think it’s not a stretch to think it would be two hundred or more years old. It’s quite a beauty. Still very healthy too. This is—cherry bark oaks are—are one of—one of the prized timber species and also one of the species that are found in higher sites within bottomlands. As I have explained before, this is a smaller bottomland so the relationships are—are sort of in a much smaller scale than they would be in a bott—a larger bottomland.
DT: You mentioned that this tree is one of the more prized in the bottomland. Can you talk a little bit about how bottomlands have typically been used in Texas, maybe the logging industry?
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JN: Used or abused.
DT: Both.
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JN: A lot of abuse and—bottomlands have—basically the—the things that have happened to bottomlands have—have been on a parallel course with the kind of things that have happened in upland forest. They usually happen a little bit later in bottomlands, cause, through time, typically bottomland hardwood tree species have not been as ch—as—as desired as some of the upland species—some of the pines. So it’s—and the other—the other reason that the bottomlands have—have not—were cut a little bit later than the uplands, as a result, they—they were more difficult to get into. They were wetter, more difficult to get logging op—machinery down into the—even with—even with archaic machinery that they had at the turn of the century when these—when these forests were first logged.
DT: I understand that fifty to sixty percent of the bottomland hardwoods are gone in Texas…
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JN: Probably upwards of—probably upwards of seventy-five percent are gone, yeah.
DT: Can you explain what some of the major factors are in the loss of bottomland hardwood?
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JN: The major threats—and—and the major threats—major reasons for destruction and, in fact, today what I consider to be the major threats are the water development projects, proposed dams and—and other projects within—within our bottomland sites, within the—within the—the stream itself.
DT: When you say water projects, is it just the impoundment or is it also the effects downstream of the dam?
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JN: Yeah, both. It—it—it’s the total effect of the project itself. The—the flooding of the forest upstream causes the trees to die. You know, and I’ll get into that in a minute. There’s a—there’s a dynamic tension. Obviously bottomland hardwoods are dependent upon flooding for their existence but if you flood them—if you keep them flooded all year long, they’re going to die. They got to have the drying too. So the upstream impacts of the reservoir, flooding the trees, killing them, and the downstream impacts below it, trees are robbed of the flooding that they used to have and the forests suffer. Course, quite often what happens too, downstream of a dam, since the sites are no longer flooded, people come in and convert the forest to other uses, either upland pine forest or upland pine species are planted there or—because the sites don’t flood anymore, it’s ripe for home site development.
DT: Can you give some examples of where that’s happened in Texas during your…
(misc.)
DT: Jim, could you talk a little bit about some of the instances of reservoir development that you think have had an impact on forests in East Texas?
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JN: Some of the—some of the major ones are obviously Toledo Bend Reservoir, which is—which is a very—one of the biggest in the state, and Sam Rayburn are two—two biggies in the Eastern part of the state which have really had a tremendous impact on bottomland hardwood forest on first the Sabine and then secondly on the Angelina Rivers. Dam B on a smaller scale on the Neches. All those are projects that have been major to minor disasters on the bottomland systems of our—of our state. We’ve averted some like Waters Bluff, at least for the time being, and I’ll just mention briefly about the Little Sandy Hunting and Fishing Club.
DT: Yeah, could you explain how you (?)…
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JN: Sure.
DT: …that dam?
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JN: Sure. That’s one of the things I’m most proud of in my career is being able to protect that wonderful forty-eight hundred acre old growth bottomland hardwood forest along the Sabine River, just North of Tyler from the Sabine River Authority who was proposing to dam it up—flood it—destroy it. And we were able, through putting a conservation easement on it and put it in the National Wildlife Refuge system, to protect the site.
DT: Can you talk a little bit about some of the negotiations to manage to do that? It’s pretty innovative, I don’t know many instances of that.
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JN: Well, we were—we were able to basically develop a conservation easement with the Little Sandy Hunting and Fishing Club where we took all development rights and all the rights to harvest the timber in exchange for the preservation and the protection of the site and it was—it was—it was a long-term project. We were sued, were taken to Federal Court in a case which went all the way to the Supreme Court in which we eventually won—we prevailed. The Sabine River Authority sought to overturn the easement but we won and it’s now protected.
DT: Can you also…
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JN: Efforts are continuing though. They never stop. The proposal I think will show up in the—the next water plan.
DT: I understand there was also legislation that was developed…
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JN: That was proposed and—proposed to take the Little Sandy refuge out of the—out of the system. At one point in time, it got to a point where it passed out of subcommittee and it had actually been attached as a rider to appropriations bill but as a result of the efforts of members of congress who were conservation minded, we ended up getting it stripped out of the appropriation bill and it—and that—that legislation was not passed. The threats continue though. So we must remain vigilant.
DT: I understand one of the other sort of major causes of changes and erosion in the amount of bottomland hardwoods that remain in Texas are logging for different purposes to mill and for saw timber and then replanting in monoculture. Can you talk a little bit about some of those…
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JN: Yeah I—and that is—that is—that is a threat. It’s a sh—it’s a more of a short-term threat where we have a situation there where forest is cut, it will regrow but the—the age of the forest is dramatically reduced. And if we continue to have cutting for chip mills with forty year rotations, we won’t have as much mass production, production of acorns and seeds. We won’t have cavity trees. We won’t have these big trees like you see along this trail. We won’t have any of that. That’s all going to be gone if we continue the—in the way of managing hardwood forests just for chips. One of the things that we’ve been trying to do is to convince forest landowners to manage forests for big trees, trees that can be cut at some point in time later in their lifecycle for saw logs and for veneer which then you can use to make cabinets and flooring. That is ver—it’s very important to be able to convince private landowners that there is value in their forest. So we—we’re preaching, let’s get long-term—longer rotations for saw logs, for quality hardwood products rather than the other alternative, shorter rotation for chips. Let’s turn it into paper and quality paper products.
DT: Can you talk about maybe some examples of areas that are being clear cut or replanted and conversely areas that are maybe being managed more sustainably?
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JN: There—I won’t say that any of them have—there—there are—there are a number of—some of the timber companies have, in the past few years, have been going toward the shorter rotations. I’m not sure—the—the—the hopeful thing is that—that maybe we’re—we’re coming out of that a little bit. Some of the major timber companies now—the quality paper product industry is not as productive as it once was and so they’re—they’re looking for other things that they can do with their bottomlands and we’re trying to convince them that there are other uses.
DT: We’ve mentioned clear cutting. Can you explain what that entails and what it looks like before and after a clear cut?
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JN: In—in clear cut—clear cutting basically kill—course is can be at a huge scale or at a very smaller scale. It can be, you know, up to thousands of acres, down to several acres in size. And that makes a big difference is to what the impacts on the forest are. And you can have a sustainable forest—forestry program in harvesting of trees for saw logs with very small openings in the forest, as opposed to these larger openings that—that really are des—have a disastrous impact on the landscape.
DT: Well in a typical clear cut, how would they approach it? Would they come in and bulldoze trees or—what sort of equipment?
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JN: Well of course a clear cut can be many things. It could be—you could have a situation where, you okay?
DT: Yeah.
(misc.)
0:26:08 – 2125
JN: You can have a situation where somebody decides to convert a—a—a forest—a hardwood forest into something else and they’ll come in and just bulldoze it down. Typically in a sit—in a typical situation with timber for—even if it is for chips, there will—they will come in, they’ll cut the trees, feed them into a chipper, they’ll be chipped up, fed into a truck and taken off site. So it’s no—it—it’s not usually any bulldozing because, from a chip standpoint, almost all of the trees have got value so they’re not going to bulldoze any of them, that would be wasting value. But in those situations where you do have—where you do have conversion to other uses, then that’s where you see bulldozers coming in but potentially, you know, bulldozing a site and—and it—and it being a major impact.
DT: And how do they go about replanting in the cases where they do replant to a new forest?
0:27:16 – 2125
JN: They—typically what they have tried to do in the past where they have tried to convert—go from a—from a bottomland to say a pine forest, they make little rows in the forest, slight increase in height, just enough so that they won’t be flooded as much. And, in that way, and the—and they hope the pines will survive. So that’s—that’s a typical—and they call it bedding, it’s the typical thing that has happened in the past. Most—that doesn’t occur very much anymore though. Most people have decided that, you know, that’s—it’s really a waste of time. In most cases the pines die, they get flooded out and they’ve just wasted all that time and effort. So that—that’s not a—that’s not a big problem anymore. It used to be more of a problem in the past.
DT: One last issue I wanted to talk about that may be affecting hardwoods, at least from what I’ve heard, is just fragmentation of the tracts that are remaining, that they’re getting smaller and other kinds of uses are coming in. Is that true, and if so can you can explain…
(Talking at same time)
0:28:33 – 2125
JN: Yes it is, very much so. And it’s the same thing. It affects both bottoms and uplands and it—in—in the same kind of manner. It br—it’s a breaking up of the landscape allowing more and more invasion by species that are—that are more commonly associated with openings, with edges and for invasion by exotic species. You can even see that in this forest. There are some exotics that are invading the forest.
DT: Are there examples like privet…
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JN: Privet…
DT: …or aloe or?
0:29:11 – 2125
JN: Privet is the—is the—is the thing here that’s invading.
DT: Could you show us some, did you notice any?
0:29:19 – 2125
JN: There was some further back. I don’t see any right here but—although that may—there may—that’s either tallow or privet. I can’t see now cause I don’t have my classes on. Yeah. Privet, Japanese privet or Chinese privet, tremendous problem in urban bottomland forest. It’s—sometimes you see areas, as a matter of fact, Natural Area Preservation Association has a preserve here in Nacogdoches along Bonita Creek which is the creek on the other side of town and the whole under story is nothing but this privet and they have some monoculture under story of nothing but privet.
DT: Is that the typical problem with exotics that they just out compete?
0:30:14 – 2125
JN: Uh huh—uh huh. They’re—they’re very good competitors. There’s, I mean—and that’s—that’s one of the problems—I was going to bring—make this point as far as problems for the future that future conservation scientists will have to look at, is dealing with exotics. Our forests are going to continue to be invaded by exotic species and future managers are going to have to deal with that more and more. I wish them luck. In that case, I’m glad I’m not going to be here to have to deal with it.
DW: Where’s the privet?
0:30:54 – 2125
JN: Right here.
DT: How do you go about trying to stop the spread of privet?
0:31:08 – 2125
JN: It’s—as with the case of any other exotic species, it’s—there aren’t easy answers. It’s a—it’s a very hearty species that you come and whack it off and it sprouts back tenfold and it’ll continue to sprout back un—unless you’re really diligent on it. Even in natural areas, probably the best answer to some of these exotics is use of herbicides and some people just kind of, “What are you saying, using herbicides in natural areas?” But there’s a choice, it’s a trade-off. You want the exotics or not? It’s a simple, I mean, that—that—it’s—it’s about that simple. Right now there’s no—unless you want to use a tremendous amount of manpower and come and continue to chop back and chop back and chop back and dig up these things, there’s no other answer.
DT: This might be a good chance to talk about other management tools such as fire.
(misc.)
DT: I just wanted to resume where we were before, we were talking about different ways of managing a forest, the use of herbicide that you mentioned with the privet, I know one popular and in some cases controversial way of managing is to prescribe ferns.
0:32:37 – 2125
JN: Yeah, not of bottomlands but of upland forest.
DT: Yeah exactly.
0:32:40 – 2125
JN: Yeah, yeah. And—and, in fact, there are upland forest types that are dependent on—on forests. They’re—they’re fire dependent and without fire they’re going to—they will not continue to exist. So I’m—I’m concerned. It’s one of the—one of the places where I part company with some of my conservation friends, in some conservation groups, is that the—some of the conservation groups don’t like the use of fire in any—under any circumstances or under most circumstances. And it’s just—systems like longleaf pine systems are not going to continue to exist without fire, without the use of fire and without the use of frequent fire.
DT: Take the example of the longleaf pine. How does fire at some frequency help that persist, sustain itself?
0:33:42 125
JN: The—the cones in—in a—in the jack pines up in the—up in the Midwest are another excellent example of some of the—there’s—there’s several pine communities that are like that where the—the fire opens up the cones, it doesn’t with longleaf but in some cases some kine—pinecones, it opens up the cone and actually the seeds are expelled as a result of fire. But fire de—leads to getting rid of some of the competitors for longleaf that would—would come up in the absence of fire. So it’s—it’s more of a—it’s more of a situation of competition down here.
DT: And how does the longleaf survive a fire where it might harm hardwoods that would come up around it?
0:34:36 – 2125
JN: There’s a—and you ought—you ought to do this at some point in time get some shots of—in a longleaf forest of both the tall longleafs, but longleafs have a stage where they go through, all the way from about this height up to this height. They call it a grass stage where it looks like just needles of grass. That’s very adapted to—to—to keeping the—the tree, that grassy stage that protects the bark. It’s very, very important for keeping longleaf seedlings somewhat immune to the effects of fire.
DT: This might be a good time to move onto the subject that you’ve spent many years of your life being involved in is trying to protect native sites as they can be managed in some of the ways you’ve mentioned. I was hoping that you might tell about some of the acquisitions that you’re particularly proud of that you managed to do in your work for non-profit groups and agencies.
0:35:54 – 2125
JN: I—it’s—that’s—that’s—actually I started out my career doing land acquisition with the Fish and Wildlife Service. And my—my first, which I still remember fondly, my first efforts at acquisition were in the lower Rio Grande Valley, in the Tamaulipan thorn scrub forest of the—of the lower Rio Grande Valley. I worked back there in the early seventies. Santa Ana was a refuge and had been there since the forties but there was not much else there. Parks and Wildlife also had a—had one wildlife management area but most of the acquisitions that had been very successful in recent years in the valley started back in the—in the seventies and have been going on since the late seventies, pretty much continuously, adding blocks and blocks every year. So I’m—I’m proud that I had some role to play in the—some of the early acquisitions that led to a—a really—a really dynamic program that’s picking up thousands and thousands of acres every year down there
DT: And what is the goal? To protect the thorn scrub or the…
0:37:13 – 2125
JN: Thorn—thorn scrub, riparian forests along the Rio Grande and the Rio Grande—and the Rio Grande Delta. It’s very, very endangered ecosystem type cause it’s—because of the climate. It’s—people like to live there. People like to—to do things there that—that are not necessarily compatible with the protection of—of natural ecosystems. So—so, yeah, it’s one of those placed in the country like—like Southern California, like Florida, that people like to live in because of the climate and people and population pressures lead to destruction of natural areas.
DT: Can you give us some instances of how you might have convinced people to sell their tracts? I assume that a lot of these were willing sellers?
0:38:09 – 2125
JN: Yeah, all willing sellers. The—the Fish and Wildlife Service who I’ve worked for, Parks and Wildlife, who I’ve worked for and the Nature Conservancy, of course, is a private nonprofit all work in—work with willing sellers. So we’ve always had to deal with willing sellers and, you know, sometimes—sometimes that’s a problem because you—you have a particular tract that you want to pick up and—and maybe a part of it right in the center of the tract that the person doesn’t want to sell. But as—as a former—former boss of mine used to say, everyplace is for sale at some point in time in the future, so you just—you just have to look at it long term.
DT: Did these come down to just financial transactions where the price was right or…
0:38:57 – 2125
JN: Some.
DT: …or do some people have a conservation…
0:39:00 – 2125
JN: It’s—and—and it’s—in dealing with landowners you have to—you have to be sensitive to what their goals are for what their economic needs are and what their goals are for a particular site. Sometimes it comes down to pure economics. You know, “Is it—is this what I can do to get the most possible for my land in the way of money?” Sometimes it’s a—it’s a situation where a landowner has a desire to protect a tract. They want to see it continue just the way it is right now. And I’ve had landowners many times tell me that they want to protect an area from their children because they know their children don’t have the same love of the area that they had. And—and—and that drives pri—that drives landowners sometimes to make conservation decisions because they’re worried about the im—what future—what their future descendents might do to th—to the area. So it’s—it’s very important to be flexible in working with private landowners and look for all sorts of ways to conserve lands. Not just fee acquisition but conservation easements, you know, some cases short-term leases even and then—and then you gradually try to cultivate the landowner through time and convert that lease into something more permanent.
DT: Could you give an example of where you used a lease to sort of introduce somebody to the idea of transferring their land permanently?
0:40:42 – 2125
JN: We have—actually there’s—there’s a—there’s—there’s one that we’re still working on right now with a paper company up to the north of us that—that the conservancy, when I was with the conservancy, we had a—we had a lease on the tract and lease expired, timber company still hadn’t done anything with it. Now we’re still using that—that in that we had with the timber company long time ago. Still remember that, they still remember that that’s a unique tract. Hadn’t been—nothing’s been done with it, primarily because they realize there’s something pretty neat about it and that, for whatever reason, they want to protect it or they can get some good PR benefits out of—of protecting it permanently at some point in time. That’s a—that’s a—that’s a good example. We still don’t have it in there, but we’re still moving forward on that—on that site. And, you know, there’s other examples of that.
DT: And you mentioned the conservation easement. Perhaps you can give some examples of how that tool works.
0:41:53 – 2125
JN: Conservation easements are a very important tool for—for protecting sites. And the reason they’re so important is because they’re so dynamic. There’s so many things you can do with the conservation easements. They talk of landowner rights as being like a bundle of sticks, each right—the right for timber harvesting, the right of trespass, the right of development. All of those are one of those bundles—one stick in that bundle. With conservation easements you can—you can go all the way from leaving a landowner almost with a full bundle, with maybe a couple of sticks out of it, to a point where there’s just maybe one stick left. In some cases, a conservation easement could be so restricted to the landowner where all they have left is the right to pay taxes on it. That doesn’t happen very often, but—it—that’s the value of conservation easements, the flexibility. You can pick up just development rights. You can pick up—you can leave a landowner with hunting rights where they may continue to want to use the land. It’s—it’s so adaptable that that’s one of the values of it. You know, one of the other things that we didn’t—mention earlier, but things like life estates where a landowner continues to have the use of a property for as long as they’re alive and then the property reverts to a conservation entity upon their death. It’s one—it’s—it’s a—it’s—it’s a way for landowners to protect a site and—and—and—and know that it’s protected but also continue to have use of the site during their lifetime.
DT: I thought it might be good if you could explain a little bit about what maybe has created situations where you’ve had to be so busy aquiring land for the public interest. I believe that only three percent of Texas is in public hands. Is there a historic reason for that?
0:44:10 – 2125
JN: There—there is a historic reason for that. Of course, as—probably as most people who are viewing this know, Texas was—was an independent nation at one point in time. It came into the country—came into the United States from being an independent state and, of course, is the only—the only state for that to have happened. In a lot of states, when the state came into the Union, it came in with—from being just a territory that was settled and there was a lot of land that was unclaimed. And that land was just public land—just became public land. And so there was already a big log of—a big amount of public land on the books. And the other thing is, and there are probably—there are a number of reasons which I probably shouldn’t go into here, but Texas has always had a very—has had a strong private land ethic, I mean, that has carried through for generations and generations. And by the way Carl Frentress, talk to Carl about that. Carl is very good about talking about that, would be much better than I am about—about that.
DT: In the early days of the republic or shortly after statehood, I had understood that some of the public lands were traded to build the capital. Is that right?
0:45:41 – 2125
JN: Some of that—some of that, yeah, some of that was true. Course, you know, that’s been done through the years in—in a lot of states and that, I mean, on a small scale, that—that certainly led to areas being taken out of public domain. But, you know, that’s—the capital is only a small area in the who—total state. You know—you know, there’s many other reasons that—that we just don’t have very many public lands. And there hadn’t been—there hasn’t been a very strong conservation ethic, quite frankly, in Texas either. Even—even when I started working for the Nature Conservancy in the early 1980’s, it was very difficult to raise money for conservation—much easier to raise money in Texas for the arts, for instance, which has never also been very easy to raise money for but much easier to raise money in Texas for the arts than for land conservation.
DT: Well, I’d understood that at one time land acquisition for the public got to be quite controversial, there was a take-back Texas sort of uprising at the time. Can you talk about the experience of that?
0:46:59 – 2125
JN: I—I’d—I had some experiences in dealing with that on a number of different particular tracks but one that’s most vivid in my mind is up at Caddo Lake when there was a proposal to make Caddo Lake a outstanding natural resource water. That generated a lot of distrust of government. The thinking was that that designation would—would prohibit landowners from doing a lot of things that they wanted to do on their lands. We were doing some watershed studies up there. We got caught up in the midst of that. We were looking at the whole watershed just characterizing it. But then we were accused of being sort of the lead guard in an effort to come in and seize everybody’s land. So, yes, I’ve—I’ve seen it—know that it can be pretty tough.
DT: And how did you appease and mollify people?
0:48:03 – 2125
JN: I’m not sure we did. As a matter of fact, one of the things that happened as a result of that, we ca—our study was cancelled. Our watershed study ceased and—and basically after the—after the private land group came on the scene, we pretty much scaled back our efforts at Caddo and pretty much ceased for a few years.
DT: What were some of the fears that they had and which ones were valid and which not?
0:48:33 – 2125
JN: The fears of—of, you know, public take-over of their lands, of onerous regulations because of endangered species, the New World Order, you know, all sorts of things. All were all factored in there. I mean, they picked on us for our watershed study and our watershed study was nothing but a scientific study. I mean, it didn’t—it had no, I mean, we—we—all we wanted to do is accumulate information, data, which could be used by private landowners or public agencies for a number of different reasons. That was not the point. Our point was to just to—it was an excellent opportunity to seek information. So we felt really blindsided by it, that it was—that they didn’t, I mean, we didn’t have any agenda. Our agenda was to get some scientific information and—and I, you know, looking back on it, we should have—we should have fought back harder. We should have gone in there and said, you know, “This is not right, this is not correct. You’re—you’re accusing us of—falsely of things.” But it’s water under the bridge.
DT: Was it any sort of organized opposition or was it just individuals who…
0:50:12 – 2125
JN: It did—became organized, which I think, you know, the way it started out in a number of other areas. One or two people pick up on it. Sometimes one or two people at the fringe that are—that—that—people that are really paranoid about, you know, government and then convince a number of other people, a lot of which are more reasonable citizens, but convince them that there really is something going on out there when there isn’t.
DT: [inaudible]
0:50:50 – 2125
JN: Yeah, I mean, I could—I could spend a few more minutes talking about that.
DT: Please do.
0:50:54 – 2125
JN: The—one of the—one of the other early things that I was involved with was acquired some of the—the refuges—very big refuges, National Wildlife Refuges that we have on the coast of Texas now.
DT: Which ones are you talking about?
0:51:10 – 2125
JN: The—the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge and added—I worked with a number of other people adding huge number of acres to the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, acquired what is now called Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge. At the time it was call Sea Rim National Wildlife Refuge. Added a—a—a unit to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.
DT: What were the goals of getting these coastal refuges?
0:51:42 – 2125
JN: That—they first started out actually, and I might say just a minute about that—about the goals of the valley. Interestingly enough, now the goals of the valley are biodiversity, you know, protection of biodiversity, endangered community types. When it—when it first started, when the acquisition first started in the valley, it was for white wing doves. That was…
DT: For hunting?
0:52:08 – 2125
JN: Basically for hunting.
DT: Was it funded with duck stamps or some kind of hunting revenue?
0:52:15 – 2125
JN: It was, no, amazingly enough, it was not although people don’t—don’t know this, it’s one of the largest really non-duck refuges that had been funded with duck stamps is that Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge was bought with duck stamps way back in the forties. But it was—it was a—it was a, I mean, white wing doves, back in the late seventies, were—people viewed them as declining. They were—they were often associated with brush—they were associated with brush. They were quite, I mean, that was where their habitat was. Brush was being lost at a—at a rapid rate and it was really a better sale. It was really—it was an—it was an—it was a—it was a situation that was easier to sell at the time cau—to protect a huntable species versus some weird concept of an ecosystem which people didn’t understand. And I’ll—I’ll do that, you know, whatever—whatever the reasons for protection. Whether it be white-winged doves which were, you know, suffering declines as a result of thorn scrub being torn up for trailer parks in the valley. We got a lot of—a lot of thorn scrub forest protected in the name of white winged doves, which were, you know, starting to really decline in numbers. Now they’re expanding like crazy. I mean, they’re in San Antonio, they’re in Austin. They’re, you know, they’re just going nuts. But back then, they were really declining in numbers. The—that—I—I got sidetracked for a second. But the—the acquisitions on the coast of Texas, those were duck stamp acquisitions primarily for water fowl, ducks and geese.
DT: And was some of it driven also by endangered species such as the whooping crane or the brown pelican?
(Talking at same time)
0:54:16 – 2125
JN: Yeah, some—some was and—and of course there was a—there was a—we all knew that the coastal wetlands were declining and had been declining too in numbers for—for many, many years too. So it was—it was another example of—we were acquiring it for water foul but, at the same tim,e we were perti—picking up a fragile wetland type.
DT: Maybe this would be a good time to talk about how the agenda or the rationale for acquiring lands seems to have evolved from providing habitats for gain to one of kind of preserve ecosystems and protect endangered species. Is that a trend you’ve seen?
0:55:07 – 2125
JN: Yes. There is a…
DT: How has that evolved?
0:55:09 – 2125
JN: Yeah, there is a trend that’s evolved. Course there are a lot more funds available now for that kind of acquisition. I mean, when I first started, most of the funding that we had—a lot of the funding that we had was—was for—was through the duck stamp funds. We’ve seen in recent years, and—as a result of the—the recent appropriations, we’re going to see a lot more money available in land and water conservation funds, which can be used for many more different kinds of things than—than the duck stamp can be used for. And I—and I see that trend continuing. I think because the public—the hunting public is declining and there—there is another public out there that’s very much interested in—in non-consumptive uses of—of wildlife and ecosystems. And so that’s—that’s something I think we’re going to continue to see more and more of.
DT: What sort of supporters have you found that have been really outspoken and helpful to you as you’ve tried to acquire lands from other states?
0:56:22 – 2125
JN: People, conservation groups obviously, have been very supportive. Beyond that though, a lot of hunting and fishing groups like SCOT, Sportsman’s Conservationists Of Texas or, yeah, that’s what they call themselves now, Sportsmen Conservationists of Texas. And just local groups that are concerned about what’s happening to—almost looking at it from a historical standpoint, that this is—this is a—this is part of our history, these woods, these forests. And it’s a part of our history that we’re losing just as much as that historical house up on North Street. I mean, so it’s a—a number of people have come up and said that.
DT: Do you get any people who are arguing on sort of force an engineering approach saying that we need clean drinking water and we need (?) water source?
(Talking at same time)
0:57:30 – 2125
JN: Yeah, yeah. Need open space.
DT: So they’re recreational…
0:57:36 – 2125
JN: Yeah, yeah.
DT: Before we go on to some general questions, are there any other acquisitions that you might want to mention. You talked about the ones down in the valley, along the coast, but it seems like you’re best known for protection that you’ve done here in East Texas.
0:58:00 – 2125
JN: Bottom land hardwoods on the Trinity River is one—is a site as well as Little Sandy which we talked about earlier. But the Trinity River is a—is a site that I worked on earlier and…
DT: Where’s that?
0:58:13 – 2125
JN: It’s down near Liberty, down between—sort of just north of and between Houston and Beaumont, along the lower Trinity River. Wonderful bottomland hardwood forest. Most of the Trinity has been converted to other uses but that lower Trinity—Trinity area is—is—is one of the least modified bottomland sites in the state. And looking to the future, we hope to begin to do some additional work on the Sabine, the Angelina River and the Neches River. Guess I should say one of the other—one of the other things that got me involved in conservation in—in the state was—was the fight to save the Big Thicket. That certainly was—I mean I had nothing to do with that, other than being an interested citizen and a supportive citizen. But that’s—that’s another important conservation project that happened in East Texas.
DT: What was the argument for protecting the Big Thicket?
0:59:23 – 2125
JN: That it was—it was—as—as I recall, they used words like cr—crossroads, a biological crossroads, you know, very productive species rich area.
DT: Is there a way to compare different sites around Texas given that there’s such huge diversity? Do you find a greater need for protection in certain areas or greater habitat value to a certain ecozones, impact zones?
1:00:05 – 2125
JN: Yeah, I mean, there—in there’s—Texas is a sunbelt state like a lot of the other sunbelt—like a lot of the other sunbelt states are—are suffering, you know, huge population increases in a number of different habitat types. And that’s occurred in Texas. I mean, obviously I’ve worked on bottomland hardwoods and think bottomland hardwoods ought to have—ought to be one of the priorities. We’ve already talked about the Gulf Coast, the—the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. All of those are certainly areas which are near and dear to my heart and—and are certainly in need of protection as well as the Blackland prairies of Texas, probably the most threatened—the—the least protected sites in the state.
End of reel 125.
(misc.)
DT: Maybe we could go a little bit further into this way of trying to do triage among the many acres that are developed and lost for conservation purposes and you’ve got limited funds and limited time, you can’t save it all. How do you do this sorting to find what’s most worthwhile to protect?
0:01:13 – 2126
JN: Very difficult. And it’s—it’s not as—triage itself, in a typical triage, where you’re dealing with victims is hard enough, but in a situation where you’re trying to compare almost apples and oranges and let’s say you were trying to figure out, will I have a human—regular human or do I—or I’ve got a Vulcan here and which one do I save. Well, that’s what you’re faced with in—in a triage of—of saving natural areas, unless you’re just talking about three sites within a bottomland forest. More often than not, you’re talking about situations where, do we save the out waters prairie chicken, do we save the last remnant Blackland prairie or do we save old growth of—an old growth bottomland forest that’s only one of its kind? How do you make that? I don’t know. I mean, I think we ought to save all three of them and in those—what often happens, the squeaky wheel gets the grea—gets the grease. What often happens, the—whatever site it is that has the best constituency gets protected in those—in those situations. They make their voice heard to congress or the appropriate agency and that’s what gets protected. And that may not be a good reason for protecting one side over another but that’s often how—how it’s done. Often times—usually it’s not the people on the ground saying, you know, this is where—of these three, this is the one that’s in the most danger, this is the one that needs the most protection, this is the rarest, this is whatever. Often with agencies, that’s not the case.
DT: This may be a little bit farther down the pike than you get involved with, but I’ve heard some people be critical of acquiring land for animals and then because these animals are quite sensitive, putting very strict controls on the amount of human use these areas can have. How do you balance those interests?

0:03:44 – 2126
JN: The—it—we—we used to have more problems—we, and I say we, speaking from a personnel working for the Fish and Wildlife Service, used to have a lot more problems than that—than we do now. Now we have an organic act which basically says that these are the priorities and—in—on an area that’s protected as a national wildlife refuge, here’s your priorities, here’s the order, with the thing that you acquired the refuge for having the top priority in the scheme. And, by law, we have to do that now. So it’s really taken some of the heat off of us in—in some of those cases. And, you know, it’s—it’s not—it’s—that’s—it’s not an easy decision when you’re using public money to protect a site and then basically are telling the public that they can’t use—use it very much or use it at all. That’s a much easier call when a private nonprofit does it than when a public agency does it. But—but, you know, now we have this law that says, “Here’s your uses, here’s the way you have to consider it.”
DT: Speaking of uses of public land, I know frequently parks and wildlife commissioners have to deal with animal welfare advocates contesting hunters’ right to use public lands and I was wondering how you sort out those…
0:05:28 – 2126
JN: It’s a—again very difficult. It’s, you know, the—the service—one of the things now as I said, we have the organic act, we have this national wildlife system improvement act, and hunting is—is one of the uses for which wildlife refuges can be put to but it—but we also have to do a compatibility thing. We have to look at, is that compatible for the reasons that we acquired the refuge or are we, you know, hunting just for the sake of harvesting something and it’s—it’s harming the thing that we protected the refuge for. So it’s—and it’s a tough call sometimes and it’s tough dealing with all those different interests. We’ve been sued by the Humane Society continually. We’ve been under continual suit from the Humane Society about duck hunting.
DT: On what grounds?
0:06:26 – 2126
JN: That it’s—that there’s no biological justification for it, that, you know, at least until recent years, the populations were declining. Now recently the populations are increasing again but the Humane Society is, you know, opposed to hunting. And—and they said, “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms to have a national wildlife refuge and then—where you go out and in—in their jargon ‘slaughter’ animals?” Well, we don’t think so but there’s some segments of society think so.
DT: I guess in many cases hunting is a replacement for natural predation. Do you think that some of these preserves can survive without the reproductions of say in East Texas the red wolf or the black bear or other large predators or do you think that they would be viable without it?
0:07:26 – 2126
JN: It’s—it’s very difficult and when—in a number of cases I don’t think there’s any a number of sites that I—that we can see throughout the country that have an overpopulation of deer. Predators aren’t there anymore. For whatever reason it’s not hunted and it’s harming the ecosystem. You—you have way to much browsing. You’ll go into a site like this and they’ll be nothing up to, you know, way up on the tree as far as the deer can reach. Nothing on the ground, nothing up to the level the deers can—the deer can reach on a tree. That’s not good. That’s not healthy to the ecosystem. So, you know, it’s—it’s certainly something that—and that needs to be factored in. In those cases, as far as I’m concerned, it’s clear cut.
DT: One last question about acquisition of land. You’ve worked for national groups and state groups but I imagine that a lot of the wildlife you’re trying to protect are international. And I wonder how you can speak to the need to protect say a neotropical migrant that lands in a lot of those lots on the East Texas coast but will die if it doesn’t have protected land? How do you all deal with that?
0:08:59 – 2126
JN: Well, I—I think the—the—the—one of the most important ways is coming up with programs like—like international conservation programs, where you recognize that there are threats outside this country and that if—if you don’t deal with those threats, that the species that we’ve got here it—when we’ve got them here, it’s not going to make any difference. I mean, it’s such a—it’s just a small snapshot in time and if you don’t protect them at their breeding grounds and at their winter grounds or don’t protect the wintering grounds and the breeding grounds, that you’re not going to have the species in the future. And I think it’s—one of the things that we can do is through education and through promoting conservation efforts in those other countries. I think that’s—that’s a big answer to it.
DT: One last thing does occur to me, when you were talking about international issues. Some people have been saying that GATT [General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs] and NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] promote trade, promotes economic growth, provides enough money for conservation including the kind of programs that you administer to acquire land. And other people say, “Well no, you fuel consumption and that fuels more destruction of habitat” and so on. Where do you fall on that spectrum?
0:10:33 – 2126
JN: I guess I’d fall more in the—in the—in the end of the spectrum that—well I don’t know, you know, it’s hard to say because—let’s take Mexico for instance. It’s hard to take a situation where you have starving people that are starving that—I mean that have no food and—outside of a nature preserve and tell them that they can’t harvest things within the nature preserve because they’re—and they’re sitting there starving to death. So, you know, you have to have a realization that there’s got—those people ha—and their needs have got to be dealt with in the total scheme of things. Having said that, I’ve—I’m—I’m still dubious of some of the claims of NAFTA and GATT and some of those other claims and—and—that—that it’s not a—it’s not a net loss to conservation. But I’m no expert in that.
DT: Speaking of sort of big picture conservation issues, maybe you could tell us what you think the—the major challenges would be for conservation in the years to come.
0:11:50 – 2126
JN: Exotics, managing for exotics or managing to get rid of exotics. I think that’s going to be the primary thing that we’re going to—that the—the managers of the future are going to have to deal with and ever shrinking habitats. Whereas we might have landscape style systems now that we’re not actually managing but they’re in—that are intact, but as population continues to increase and encroachment on natural habitats continue, we’re going to be managing postage stamps size preserves, heavily invaded by exotic species. And we’re going to have to deal with that. And I wish I was more hopeful about things than that, but I’m, you know, I don’t know.
DT: Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist?

0:12:46 – 2126
JN: Probably a pessimist. I wish I weren’t, I wish I could be, you know, give you some hopeful message but I’m not sure I can.
DT: What are the roots of your pessimism?
0:12:59 – 2126
JN: Just having looked at—at—at the state of things over my lifetime.
DT: And how have things changed?
0:13:07 – 2126
JN: I think pretty much for the worse. You know, and one of the other things that I—I was thinking about today too, we’ve got—we’ve got a younger generation who I don’t think is as in touch with the land. I don’t think they have an attachment for the land. I think they’re spending more and more time behind a computer screen and less and less time out in the woods, you know. And really what it is that—what it is out there that’s really wonderful to be looked at and enjoyed and protected.
DT: Given that, what sort of advice could you give to the younger generation? How would you persuade them or encourage them to get involved in conservation?

0:13:52 – 2126
JN: I don’t know other than just to try to get out there and—and see what the world has to offer. I mean, that there’s more to life than a computer screen and playing games. That there’s some really wonderful stuff—neat stuff out in the woods and out in the marshes and wetlands and blackland prairies and grand prairies and, you know, whatever in the desert and wherever. That there’s neat stuff out there and they ought to get out there and enjoy it while they’ve got a chance.
DT: And speaking for yourself, what is it that sort of inspired you?
0:14:29 – 2126
JN: I—you know I touched on it a little bit earlier in—in—in some of the talks about some of the literature that I—that inspired me, some of the people that inspired me and—and—and looking at the conservation needs, looking at the threats and trying to figure out ways to counter those threats.
DT: Perhaps you could talk about a favorite spot that you like to go to and perhaps explain what it makes you feel like to go there?
0:15:04 – 2126
JN: I—I—there’s—there’s two or three favorite spots that I have, well in Texas. One of my favorite spots of all times in the Smokies but—but in Texas, I have to say it’s the Mill Creek Cove Forest over in the Sabine National Forest, it’s beech magnolia—old growth beech magnolia forest, just really beautiful. Little Sandy National Wildlife Refuge Hunting Club and probably for a number of reasons, it’s old growth forest and it’s something that I had a ha—I played a—I had a hand in protecting. Caddo Lake is a pretty magical place, pretty neat.
DT: What do you mean by magical?

0:15:50 – 2126
JN: It’s—it’s magical because it changes, because it is so mysterious. It’s a place of wonder, it’s a place of awe. It’s just pretty neat. So those are some of my favorite spots.
DT: Well, thanks for sharing those with us. Anything you’d like to add?
0:16:17 – 2126
JN: Not that I can think of right now David.
DT: Well thanks very much for taking the time.
00:16:22 – 2126
JN: Yeah.
End of reel 2126.
End of interview with Jim Neal.