Ted Eubanks Interview, Part 2 of 2

TE: Is, well, the question you had asked regarded was regarding, you know, how do you pitch the landowners and what how do you deal with that sort of, what the opportunities are. You know, I'll tell you what; that's been an interesting evolution.

The need to pitch has gone away, I mean, we've evolved into a different place than we were originally. There's a tremendous amount of interest. Far more interest than I can handle.

What we are now focusing on, and certainly in my firm, is how do we deliver. Its not how can get them interested, but how do we make good on a promise. How do we make sure this is workable in a private land scenario?

So, I do much less of the pitching than I used to, and much more really working at sort of a strategic level.

That really feeds into another question that you'd asked about, the sort of the dark side. What about these projects that, I mean, not every eco-tourism project in this nation is, or in the world, is beneficial.

In fact, one of the interesting sort of adjuncts to this whole globalization and global market argument and, you know, as seen in the Seattle demonstrations, etc. is there is a there is a very significant and vehement collection of people around this world that oppose eco-tourism and believe that it does disenfranchise local communities, even though it comes in under a very, you know, seemingly benign heading.

But, in a sense, it does, in the end, disenfranchise local people. The problem is this, any project can go astray, no matter how good it is. And you can, you know, plan to build a church and it can go astray, I mean, things just happen.

And it really has, from our standpoint, emphasized the need to have really well balanced, substantial, strategic planning in place before any of these projects are taken to the field. It's one of the things we spend at least half our time doing. I'll give you a couple of examples.

We're working on a strategic plan in north central Pennsylvania, the Allegheny Mountains. Its about 800 elk left in that area, its a growing elk population, one of the large, largest east, eastern elk populations.

And a huge public land holding, about 2.4 million acres of public lands in that area, Allegheny National Forest, lots of state forest lands. And little communities up in the hollows. And the, you know, the elk are in people's backyards; they're eating the apples off the trees; you know, elk are everywhere.

And over the last decade or so, people have started coming out to see the elk during bugling. To the point now, its grown to about 60,000 come out to see the elk.

They park in peoples driveways, they trespass, they hop their fences, they, it's wildlife viewing at its worst, not its best. And so the state hired me to come in and fix it, you know, make, you know, make some order out of this madness.

And that's what we've been doing is sort of backing off, and seeing, OK, how can we manage traffic? How can we create a much broader wildlife viewing opportunity? How do we make sure it's not just seasonal? How can, you know, all these sorts of things that should have happened at the front end, not the back end. And so a lot of our work around the world is really dealing with the front end.

The example you brought up about the the conservation lodge that was proposed for Matagorda. Probably those issues could have been dealt with up at the front end, and and I I would imagine we would've come to exactly the same conclusion, which is, nice project, wrong place.

You know, just not the place to do it. Let's let's let's go somewhere else and do that project. I mean, all the arguments in favor of the project were the right ones, it just wasn't the right setting, perhaps.

DT: What was the tradeoff, what was the for-and-against?

TE: Well, for one, let's go demonstrate to the world that we can go and do this sort of lodge. That was, in general. I mean, you know, I knew the guys who were involved, good guys, good people, you know, certainly had the right right sentiment, had the, you know.

The downside was it was using public lands; it was using public lands in in in a subsidized fashion; it was using public lands in a sense to create an entity that would ultimately compete with some of the private sector lodges, etc., in the, in the area.

Most importantly, it was Matagorda. And if you look at the fight over Matagorda, and the history of environmental involvement and conservation communities involved in creating that. It, you know, I think anyone could've told you, this is just not the place.

This is just a little too touchy; this is not the place I would do this; its not appropriate at this place. Doesn't mean the ideas not a good one, doesn't mean it can't be done elsewhere.

I mean, we're working on this project right now in San Luis Pass right now where a private landowner owns it, owns that whole west end of Galveston Island. He wants to set aside the flats, one of the great, the last wild tidal pass left on the upper Texas coast.

Never been touched. No bulkheads, no channels, no cuts, it's a wild tidal pass that hosts probably millions of birds every year constantly flowing in and out, backwards and forwards.

He wants to set aside the pass, some of the marshes, and he's working with us to come come up with the right type of development that fits that spot. In that sense, I come out being pro development.

I mean, one of the there's two things that really concern me, when we in the conservation and environmental community become stridently anti-development. Number one, poverty trumps all.

It's the big card. In the end, no matter what you're working on, poverty will do you in. You have to deal with that economic and social reality up front. Poverty will do you in.

Galveston's not a wealthy community. It has a very poor segment of its population. They need jobs, they need tax revenues, they need development on that west end. What we need to do is make sure that can happen in a responsible fashion.

Because number two, second point I was making is, if you leave a void, you know, this sort of, private landowner owns the land, but we want him or her to do nothing, just, you know, and and and and we don't come in to fill the void, buy the land, or do something of that sort. Something else will come in to fill it that's worse than anything you possibly could've ever imagined.

Voids are always filled by the worst possible projects, you know. Trailers, or something something's going to happen down there. So get ahead of it, be proactive, how can we do the right thing?

Get that set aside, get the right, you know, get the sanctuary set aside and get everything done, make sure there's a good relationship between any development. I mean, go to Frasier Island, go to the Kingfisher Lodge in Australia. There's a great example of a, of a lodge that that, you know, lives lightly on the land, I mean, it's really a perfect fit.

And Frasier Island is a, you know, a world hemispheric site. I mean, it's, I mean the it it can be done. And and it's something that's really, I've been struck by in my travels, I mean, one again, one of the nice things about my job is I get to travel the world. I get to see a lot and lots and lots of nice places, you know. Australia, or Iriomote, Japan, or Scandinavia, or just looking at other coastal settings.

One of the things that really strikes me is: we as Texans have this remarkable, I don't know, we undervalue our coastal resources. We have valued them traditionally on what they can provide us from an extractive sense, they're either a good fishery or we can build our petrochemical plants down there because there's water and we can use barges or we can, whatever.

I mean, we always have this long list of things that we can do with the coast. But we've had we've been very slow in coming to the realization that, you know, that these places left alone have great value.

A lot of our coast, you know, is ratty. It looks like hell. You know, we've got these abandoned double-wides, and crap thrown off the side of the road, how can that be? Why is it we don't have the respect for, I mean, look at Padre Island, I mean talk about a brilliant move.

Here today, after it was, you know, the credible moves in the early days to make sure that its conserved, we have the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, in the world.

What an unbelievable treasure. What a way to be able to develop a sustainable travel and tourism program. It can carry you into the future.

Think about it. Were down to one tidal pass on the upper coast, that's left. You know, Freeport? We moved the Brazos River. They didn't like it where it was; we moved it. Sabine Lake, Port Arthur, its all channelized. What about Bolivar Roads? All across Galveston Bay into the Port of Houston, it's all channelized. Just go look at all the, Here's the last one, think what an opportunity there is.

And that's one of those icon sites, one of those places where you can go, stand on the edge of the water and it's like it was when Audubon came in 1837. Ignore the bridge, just look back over the bay. It's like it was. Allows you to sort of be transported back in time.

That's the sort of thing I like my grandkids to be able to do, is to be able to go to the same place I went, you know, and be able to see virtually what I saw. Texans need to deal with that.

We as Texans have got to, you know, I love, I love our pride of place and who we are, because it's very different than a lot of states, a lot of states don't have that. In fact, a lot of states, people ask you why in the world you came. You know, I mean, it's like, how could anybody find something of interest here?

It's not like that in Texas. My God, we're the first people to to brag about who we are. We're not always the first people to brag about where we are.

DT: You mentioned the special quality to be able to go to a place like San Luis Pass to see the birds, but also to get the sense of history of the place and to see what Audubon might've seen when he visited it, and I suppose there's another aspect to this. You go to an old ranch and you get the idea of the culture of the place, you know, the ranching culture, the

TE: Permanence. DT: cattlemen of the west. Can you talk about how this experiential tourism, nature tourism, eco-tourism, maybe brings together nature, history, culture?

TE: Sure, I mean, there's, experiential tourism recognizes, there's very soft edges on those interests. I mean, it's very difficult to be a student of nature and not see how it influenced history and culture.

And so one of the things we've been working on at the firm is, how do we literally meld those interests together. Ill give you an example. We're doing a project right now in Ohio along Lake Erie. We're doing a strategy for all the counties that front Lake Erie. Cleveland's in the middle, Toledo to the west, you know, Conneaut to the east.

Last place you'd probably think about nature tourism. I mean, Lake Erie. Cuyahuga River burning. Algae blooms in the lake. I mean, it's not what you think of. It's interesting, though. It has been cleaned up. I mean, things are improving in that area and there's still little bits and pieces left of what was.

So what we have done is, first of all, went in and identified the nature tourism sites we're interested in. Then we said, OK, how'd this affect culture and history and let's find cultural attributes and historical attributes that are clearly derived from the nature that was here.

And so, for example, we're very interested in this area around Toledo, it was where the Great Black Swamp was. The Great Black Swamp was drained. It was one of the great inter, you know, wetland areas, really in the United States and largely, it's been lost.

Lost to agriculture and a bunch of other things. There's still some icon sites in there, though, but, its interesting. Right outside of Toledo, where the Great Black Swamp was, is also where the Battle of Fallen Timbers took place, Fallen Timbers in a swamp.

In other words, the battle, history, took place in that area that is one of our nature sites. So we start tying history and nature together. Well, then you start thinking about culture.

In Texas, the ranching culture is derived from what was there on the land, I mean, it's derived from nature, the way cattle could be raised and you know, the fact that things like chaps were ever developed. I mean, chaps were developed because of the habitat, the chaparral that, you know, that thick, brushy, you know, thorns grow with everything that has a spine or a thorn on it.

Made sense. OK, so suddenly we can almost study nature through studying culture and history and visa versa. In fact, its sort of like this multi-faceted gem or stone, you just keep turning it and with every facet, OK, now I'm looking through history but I always find my way to nature, or I can look through nature and Ill always find my way to culture and history.

It's the interrelationship, it's understanding that man and nature are just intertwined, whether we want to admit it or not, we are intrinsically linked. One reflects the other.

DT: Could you talk a little bit about your, not just about eco-tourism, but maybe about your own business and the whole idea of a cause oriented corporation.

TE: Yeah.

DT: You know, like the ecology commerce link that I think you're trying to develop?

TE: Yeah, you know, we're still, Fermatas still pretty much involved in tourism and travel, although it's become much also involved in nature interpretation and, you know, all kinds of different sort of programs. But still, largely, our work is through travel, in in in in travel and tourism.

We've become so convinced of the power of these sorts of products in getting the public involved, and this just just the absolute critical need to facilitate and nurture that sort of relationship to make sure, and make it easy for people to find their way to nature, that we've really devoted our careers to that end.

And so one of the things we're involved in right now, the very formative stages, is because of the success and and being able to understand how these trails have worked so successfully and why they work. See, these these trails, all a trail is is a thematic itinerary. It's a way of taking the experiences and just arraying them along a line. They're linear.

If it works in Texas, then it works in the nation. So we're going to build a nation national system with these trails. We're going to do them all. And, they're going to be like the Great Plains, were gon, we're starting now in the Great Plains, where you'll be able to go from Manitoba to Coahuila

and have your whole trip interpreted, where, for by that end, you'll understand grassland ecology, you'll understand that the Great Plains are not just this giant, it's not just this giant, you know, the Great American Desert between the two mountain ranges. It is a destination in itself.

It is a remarkable ecosystem, and therefore, we can interpret it and and what's interesting is these trails end up being longitudinal, not latitudinal, in a sense reflect the ebb and flow, the seasonal ebb and flow.

I can be driving down the trails as the sand hills are migrating to the south, or the mountain clovers are going to the grasslands of Coahuila and I can interpret prairie dog ecology in Manitoba, but I can also interpret Mexican prairie dog ecology at El Prado. See, again, a way of tying and linking this altogether.

Ultimately, the American public can have access into all of these wonderful resources and understand, first of all, the great value of the outdoors, its its its transcendent value. But then, also, understand why we see what we see, why people did what they did, what happened with the bison and what that was all about and then what can bring that back.

I mean, to me it's a what to, to me, at this moment, there are some great, positive, encouraging stories to tell and this is a way to tell those.

And and, therefore, there needs to be,yeah, there's travel and tourism, but there's also educational layers and there's conservation layers and communication and outreach. All this gets layered into this trail to where people can mine down through these information sources, these sort of, its kind of like creating a GIS, but for travel and tourism. That's what our firm does.

OK, here's an example. If I can build this trail, we can use the travel and tourism industry to help fund the development of the economic development site, the travel and tourism site. But what about conservation information?

You know, its interesting, there's a lack of that in some areas. Well then, we'll just partner with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, or somebody of that sort, to fund those activities as well. In other words, we can leverage, for every dollar that travel and tourism puts in, we, that matches a dollar that's being put in for the co.

See, it's an interesting way of linking interlinking all of these different information sources and recognizing that if the primary way people find their way to nature is through recreation, then let's maximize the benefit from that recreation.

And that's precisely where many of the environmental groups who see recreation as being demeaning, I mean, come on, were out there saving the world, recreation's just for fun, really miss the boat. Not understanding that's the way people define their relationship with the outdoors, is through their recreation.

But it's also, I think, sort of highlights that contrast we were talking about, with some of the birding groups or some of the recreation only groups which is, were missing an unbelievable opportunity to rel to relate to the public, to make sure they understand why it's important that these places exist.

Why why it's important that we protect ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]. Why it's important that the Platte River ecosystem as a whole be protected. Its (I'm off the mark)

DT: Maybe you can talk a little bit about these very special jewels that are pristine and maybe give me an idea of the sort of response you give to a deep-ecology, wilderness, RARE II [Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II], sort of advocate who says, these places should be off-limits and you're promoting access.

TE: Mmm-hmm. There are places that should be off-limits. I'm the first one to to say that. I mean, it's but we should, we should approach that with an understanding that for every one of those places that gets placed off-limits, we lose an opportunity.

We may gain an opportunity, but we also lose one. There's a cost associated with doing that. An example is on the Texas birding trail in the valley, there are sites that have star cactuses, one of the most endangered cacti in the United States. There are only about five populations left.

I'm not going to put star cactus on a birding trail. First of all, they'd be dug up and put in a pot somewhere or sold, I mean, you know, that's clearly, we do not want visitation in that area. Those need to stay off the radar screen.

And there are others of those sites. There are some bog habitats in the, you know, the east, and there's orchid bogs, and you know, all that stuff. There are many sensitive habitats and communities that need to be protected.

But just remember that when we do that, then the public at large doesn't value them. They're unknown. They don't care what happens to those.

I don't believe anything's inviolate, I don't think anything's forever. The only way to ensure that these sites are protected is to make sure people value them and let them see them and understand them. Its also me recognizing that, you know, how many wilderness areas are there?

I mean, I'll give you a great example. We work on the, on the upper peninsula of Michigan, U.P. [Upper Peninsula] was all cut, you know, the turn of the century, late 1800's, the Big Cut it was called.

It's where forestry in America really got its start was on the U.P. Its now wilderness like, it functions essentially as a wilderness. Its not a natural forest; its a naturalized forest. It doesn't matter. For people traveling in the area to that Hiawatha National Forest, its as close as wilderness as it needs to be.

And so, yes, there are those icon sites that should be protected, but for me, Id rather find a way to get that seventy million more involved. Then I could effect elections, then I could make sure that there's wilderness areas.

DW:: A question I had about that, is a lot of times when you talk about this kind of recreation is motorized recreation. What I saw when we were visiting South Padre was people, you know, spinning 360s and pickup trucks on the beach and you talk about pristine, right?

Why is California valued in a different way? This is absolutely unheard of, and I'm wondering if they're trying to ease off on the fill-up-the-tank, lets-spin-360s-on-the-preserve mentality, if it makes it hard to overcome when you want to enlist the support of these people but their idea of enjoying it is not

TE: You know, that's, I'm going through exactly that issue right now in San Luis Pass, where one of the pa, one of the component parts of our efforts there is to close, is to manage traffic on 3 ½ miles that front the Gulf to San Luis.

It, through a number of studies, particularly Pipe and Clover, it's clear that this functions as an ecosystem, that birds, then high tides go to the beach and backwards and forwards.

Right now the beach is completely open to vehicular traffic. The dunes are torn up, all the, you know, dune community back on the bay sides completely ripped and shredded.

And we're getting major opposition to managing traffic there from a, you know, group of very vocal and vehement anglers that basically say, we want to drive our fat asses to the edge of the water with our fishing poles.

I don't want to share it. You know? Well, you know, I get that's that frontier, I guess that was the that was the state of my grandfather, great-grandfather, but, you know, we got 3 ½ million people living right up the road in Houston.

We're going to have to deal with these issues of, you know, 21st century approach, which is, you know, our dunes are more valuable than just to be places to drive our ATVs. Those beaches are more valuable than just to be a place to park your pickup truck.

And so, there have to be compromises and there has to be a consideration given to all of the different values. I mean, I love the Texas Open Beach Act. The Texas Open Beach Act didn't guar guarantee that you could drive your pickup truck to the edge of the water.

It says you would be able to go to the edge of the water and I am absolutely in favor of that. But, if we're not careful, we're going to lose some of these absolute the last of the last sites, because we're not willing to tackle that issue. Good, that was a good question.

DT: I guess the big question that a lot of us struggle with is what are the big challenges for the future and I was wondering what sort of environmental issues you see, and opportunities as well.

TE: Yeah, it's probably something along the lines of what I've talked about before, but I think the great challenge of us for us in this next hundred years is to emancipate environmentalism. To emancipate conservation. It's still elitist. It's still white. It's still leaving out huge segments of our population.

And in a state like Texas, con conservation will suffer because of that, and those populations that deserve better will suffer from that. I mean, Houston, Texas is a great example. I mean, that ought to be cutting edge for this work.

I mean, its the only, I can't remember, it's the only state in the south, I mean, the only city in the south, one of the big cities in the south, that's in the top ten in Hispanic, African-American, and Oriental population. Now think about that, it's remarkable.

Here's this melting pot where we should be able to come together, cross ethnic boundaries and and and and to deal with these issues. I think we've started in the valley.

I think the work with the World Birding Center and the way the Hispanic community is involved in that has happened, but still, you know, I give a lot of talks and I go and I see a lot of white faces in the crowd. I'd like to change that.

So, I would say, my goal, or my is how do I improve on that. Its 285 million Americans, you know, how do we make sure they all find their way to the outdoors, not just that small subset. That's the challenge. That's where we should be spending our time and effort.

I think, you know, there is a group that is spending time and effort on saving habitat and buying land. Wonderful. But, let's not do that and ignore the human element, which is, we need their support. We need their votes. We need their involvement.

And, by and large, those people, our neighbors, if they ever involved in the outdoors, its going to be through some form of recreation. And I don't care if its camping or hiking or biking or water-skiing or whatever. How can we use all those? I've done interpretive trails for mountain bikers.

I mean, come on, there's, you know, you're mountain biking down a trail and you're seeing things, I mean, what are these things were seeing? I mean, we we need to be much broader in our our understanding of just how powerful recreation is in our country. It's one of those common interests we all share.

DT: What's your attitude about the consumptive versus the non-consumptive recreation, the hunters and fisherman? You said earlier that you, for one reason or another, evolved out of that.

TE: Oh, I think, yeah, that's an interesting topic. I mean, its one I deal with all the time. I mean, I've got a pretty straightforward answer. Hunting goes away. Its going away. It's you know, its not anything anyone's done. It's not a, you know, anti-hunters, or any of that sort of you know those sort of, most obvious sort of reasons.

It's an inappropriate activity for an urban population. And it doesn't fit. Not inappropriate, it doesn't fit an urban population well. You know, when my grandfather hunted, he walked out the back door and my dad had you know, you'd go a mile away and when I hunted, you know, we didn't have to go far, you know, a few miles.

My kids? You'd have to drive 35 miles, hope you get a lease, you know, you're not competing, video games and soccer and all, you know? And therefore, you're looking the last ten years, hunting license sales in Texas have declined by 42% compared to the population as a whole. That's market share.

You know who, I'll tell you who gave that talk the other day, it was in Alpine, Texas. You know who was talking about that? David Langford. Look, we know what's going on out there. Those of us that have been working on this understand clearly what is happening. We are losing a population of hunters.

Do you know what percentage of the population in the United States hunt hunt waterfowl? Four percent. Do you know what population are involved in wildlife viewing and away from their home? Fifty-five percent.

It's there's a disconnect here. And so we have a Game Commission, or a Parks and Wildlife commission, or whatever it is, that does largely cater to this one group of users that's declining.

And that causes great difficulties with funding because, you know, Pittman-Robertson and Wallet-Burrough and all those funds are important to help fund these agencies which receive no general funds. And yet that that's going away. It's just going away. So, go ahead. Jump in.

DW: When you say that about hunting, do you does that also include, say, hunting for culling or (?) wildlife herd management as well?

TE: Doesn't matter what it is. Hunting. Hunting is going away. Hunting as an outdoor recreation is declining. Some states it's radical, some states are kind of holding their own. Only two, by the way, are holding their own.

The rest have declining populations of hunters. Some types of fishing are holding their own. Some are growing. Some are declining, but by and large, the consumptive activities are increasingly disconnected from an urban base. That's all I'm saying.

And unless you can convince me that suddenly everybody's going to leave the city and move back to the rural communities, that will continue. So, I think, in our state, we can assume that consumptive use will decline. Consumptive use, particularly hunting, has also become increasingly exclusive.

High dollar. Its one of the things that Langford and I have talked about many times. And and if if you're ever going to get to 200 million, 280 million people, if you're ever going to get to this mass that will create that as I've said years ago in Audubon, that culture of conservation where it becomes the part of the fabric of society, I would say hunting's a pretty poor tool this time. Just doesn't involve enough people.

Also, what do you do in a state like Texas when 95 or 96% of the hunters are male, and 95 or 96% are Anglo. What do you do about those other masses of Hispanics or African-Americans or Asians or whatever it might be. I mean, how do we get them involved in the outdoors, you're not going to do it thorough hunting.

What's the fast fastest growing family unit in the country? Single-parent. Single parents, female. You think Mom takes little Joey hunting? No. I mean, what this state needs is an honest discussion of this, and just say, here are the facts, you know, what do we do?

But, I tell you, typically what I've found is, most people don't want to hear it, involved in this business. Most people at the Game Commissions do not want to hear this. They want to stick their heads in the sand, and pretend that somehow it's all going to right itself or at least they'll be able to ride it out till they retire. That's reality.

DT: Well, again, looking towards the future, you mentioned something about creating a culture of conservation.

TE: Yeah.

DT: How do you recruit the young people that might be coming up and considering different avenues for themselves?

TE: Well, it has to be, you know, I would like to say, gosh, the way you do it is through this sort of, you know, have a life like I've lived, where your parents are involved. But look at what's I'll give you an example. Look at the newest Audubon program to build Audubon centers.

That's exactly what we should be doing, particularly urban centers. And not urban centers in rich, suburban neighborhoods. You know, which is where a lot of the nature centers in this country are, they're out there where the money is so they can always end up in sort of, you know, out there in some exclusive neighborhood. No, I mean, you know, urban nature centers in in Houston on Dowling.

You know, I'm talking about where the people are, where the people that really need them, do you realize that I was, I was in the 70's, I cant remember, in the seventies, eighties, something like that, Rice University did a study of the kids that live in the projects in Galveston and 60% of the kids in the projects have never been to the beach.

DT: And they live on an island.

TE: They live within walking distance, never been to the beach. We better fix that. that's the issue we better be dealing with. In the end, they vote. In the end, they're your neighbor. In the end, they're one of our fellow citizens that deserves to be able to enjoy the things we've enjoyed.

That's where I'd be how do you get young people involved? Get them involved early. So the investments of Audubon and these centers and all of these other programs that are going on to build more significant outreach efforts, particularly at you know, for the disadvantaged.

That's exactly what we should be doing. And then, to be able to sort of carry them out of high school and then making sure the professions are there and that there are, you know, this sort of in economic incubators that are necessary to create these businesses that can thrive on.

Because whether its guides or BandBs or whatever, and to look and then to rethink some of these things. I means, I'll say this, Susan Combs is good about this, I mean, I like Susan and I like Susan period. She's the one that's been really that's been talking about value added agriculture as long as I can remember.

Always talking about, how do we get out of just commodities. I mean, it can't be just grow wheat, how do we make pasta? Not only how do we make pasta, how do we serve pasta in a restaurant? I mean, how do we make sure that that part of the economic benefit stays in our state?

And one of the be, one of the examples she says, which I think is just a hoot, is that in our state, we buy something like a billion dollars worth of cut flowers a year. We grow five percent of them.

There's an example. So how do we do the sorts of, I mean, you know, how do you take culture and economics and history and nature and all tie it together into an economic strategy that is sustainable and emancipated, it involves all segments of her society. That's the challenge for us. It can't just be, we'll buy it, lock it up. We'll lose. You can't buy enough. You will never buy enough.

DT: One more question?

TE: Yeah. Oh, sure.

DT: You've been fortunate to visit many places around the world, some of which are very beautiful and give you wonderful release and relaxation. Can you tell about one that is particularly special to you?

TE: Well, I probably should mention the Texas side. I mean, I could certainly mention other parts of the world which I think are very special.

I probably I'll mention two in Texas. Certainly the the the coast, Galveston, particularly. I mean, I just have this relationship with Galveston. Some of my earliest memories are in Galveston, I hope to retire in Galveston, that's where I hope to spend my last days is in Galveston.

That's where culture, history and nature blend, to me. I mean, you know, the 1900 storm, a great natural event, which dramatically impacted history and culture. So, Galveston, certainly.

But, in Texas, the other that I would mention is the South Rim. If you, if you hike up to the South Rim and Big Bend and look out across to Mexico, then it then Texas makes sense to you. It sort of brings it together, just this the overwhelming power of nature in our state and to see it there, sort of just displayed before you.

In fact, I made a, I remember, I cant remember who I was talking to, one of our governors at one point in time. And I said, you know, we really we really ought to pass a bill that says in order to run for office in the state of Texas, you have to hike to the South Rim.

I mean, it would rid us of people that aren't particularly fit, but the other thing is, how can you understand it? I mean, how can you understand this state, this state where, you know, when we built our capital we didn't have any money. We had lands. We gave them a million acres.

It's one of the great ranches in Texas. We paid off, paid them off in land. You have to understand that. It doesn't doesn't doesn't does tie into to this private land ethic in our state, which is as much about sentiment as it about law. It's our connection back to these great open spaces.

And so, the South Rim is a good place to reconnect for me. It sort of brings it all back into, you know, into perspective.

DT: Is there anything you'd like to add?

TE: No. It was enjoyable. I've, you know, yeah, one last point. Just me personally. I I don't really have a chance very often to think back, because I'm really more interested in thinking forward.

You know, I'm fifty-two years old and, you know, I'm I'm I'm hoping that its just getting started. That the, that it took this period of time to to to work through some of these details and work through the emotions and work through, you know, projects.

To be able to go out and buy land and understand how that works and what that means and to implement projects like the [Glen] Burney Trail and then see how that works and then be able finally have this little, you know, bag full of tools that now you can I feel as though you can start taking these out there and doing something. So, I think for us who have been whacking away at this thing for a while in this state, you know, we got a lot more to do.

DT: Well, good. Well let you get to it. [Misc.] [End of Reel 2192] [End of Interview with Ted Eubanks]