Nearing the one-year anniversary of the most destructive wildfire in Texas history, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Arbor Day Foundation and Texas A&M Forest Service recently appealed for help by launching the Lost Pines Forest Recovery Campaign, a multi-year public-private partnership to raise money to plant more than 4 million trees on public and private land.
The September 2011 fire destroyed more homes than any other in state history, and it raged through 95% of 6,600-acre Bastrop State Park, as well surrounding private forest lands. The forest recovery campaign, expected to cost more than $4 million, aims to plant native loblolly pine seedlings on about 16,000 burned acres. That includes about 2 million trees in the state park, and more than 2 million on surrounding private land.
The Lost Pines ecosystem includes more than 75,000 acres of loblolly pines scattered across sections of five Texas counties, an ecological island separated from larger pine forests in East Texas. About 80% of the forest lies in Bastrop County, and 32,400 acres of it burned in the fires. Of that total burned acreage, about 20% is in the state park. Another 5% is on county land, mostly road right-of-way. The remaining 75% is controlled by some 3,600 landowners.
The Arbor Day Foundation will lead forest recovery fundraising, while the state parks and forest agencies will serve as on-the-ground partners in the five-year forest recovery effort. The foundation has already secured financial commitments from several corporate sponsors, including Mary Kay, Inc., FedEx, Chili’s Grill and Bar, Nokia and Apache Corporation.