TPWD is looking for public comments on their draft 2024 State Land and Water plan. Best I can tell, this document is updated every 10 years and sets goals for how TPWD will practice conservation of their land, waters, flora, fauna, cultural resources, etc. Putting this on the public hunting topic page since thats what I am most concerned about.
The plan is here: https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/land-and-water-plan
There's also a "Land and Water Statewide Inventory" map at that link I havent seen before, showing what seems to be pretty much all city, county, federal, and state owned or leased properties.
The public survey, which is open for comments until September 30 is here: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=p_1keK1i7EeB7DIyZuOjXwcVSFwht MJAgFFwDkXvx6RUNkI4VkdEMEs2R1dDTlI0UkNKNUIwWUlGUy4 u
There will be 2 different web-meetings from noon-1pm on September 1 and September 8 that we can join in on.
I plan on listening to 1 of those meetings and leaving some comments on the survey.
Main thing I'd like to see over the next 10 years is protecting what little state-owned natural land we have from development. To me that means not only TPWD purchasing the state parks and lands that are currently leased (ex: Fairfield SP and also some of the public hunting areas that were leased and then lost), but also maintaining access and hunting privileges on owned lands that are being surrounded by development or in an urbanized area. I could definitely see a small hunting area get a couple new neighborhoods nearby and the new neighbors putting pressure to remove hunting. Like many of you have shared on this forum, I agree there's some things that they could be doing better, but IMO it would be much better for general public, the wildlife, and us hunters if the state has control of their land/water instead of developers who will turn it all into subdivisions. This all seems to fall under Objectives 3, 4, 9, 10, and 14 on the draft plan.
The plan is here: https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/land-and-water-plan
There's also a "Land and Water Statewide Inventory" map at that link I havent seen before, showing what seems to be pretty much all city, county, federal, and state owned or leased properties.
The public survey, which is open for comments until September 30 is here: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=p_1keK1i7EeB7DIyZuOjXwcVSFwht MJAgFFwDkXvx6RUNkI4VkdEMEs2R1dDTlI0UkNKNUIwWUlGUy4 u
There will be 2 different web-meetings from noon-1pm on September 1 and September 8 that we can join in on.
I plan on listening to 1 of those meetings and leaving some comments on the survey.
Main thing I'd like to see over the next 10 years is protecting what little state-owned natural land we have from development. To me that means not only TPWD purchasing the state parks and lands that are currently leased (ex: Fairfield SP and also some of the public hunting areas that were leased and then lost), but also maintaining access and hunting privileges on owned lands that are being surrounded by development or in an urbanized area. I could definitely see a small hunting area get a couple new neighborhoods nearby and the new neighbors putting pressure to remove hunting. Like many of you have shared on this forum, I agree there's some things that they could be doing better, but IMO it would be much better for general public, the wildlife, and us hunters if the state has control of their land/water instead of developers who will turn it all into subdivisions. This all seems to fall under Objectives 3, 4, 9, 10, and 14 on the draft plan.
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