Boggy Slough Conservation Area Receives Texas Leopold Conservation Award

The Boggy Slough Conservation Area along the Neches River is the recipient of the 2025 Texas Leopold Conservation Award®.

Leopold Conservation Awards honor ranchers, farmers, and forestland owners who go above and beyond in their management of soil health, water quality and wildlife habitat on working land.

The T.L.L. Temple Foundation will be presented with the award at the Lone Star Steward Awards Dinner on May 21 in Austin. They receive $10,000 for being selected and to further their stewardship of the property.

Sand County Foundation and national sponsor American Farmland Trust will present Leopold Conservation Awards to landowners in 28 states this year. In Texas the award is presented in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Lone Star Land Steward Awards program.

The award, given in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold, recognizes ranchers, farmers, and forestland owners who inspire others with their dedication to environmental improvement. In his influential 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac, Leopold advocated for “a land ethic,” an ethical relationship between people and the land they own and manage.

The Texas Leopold Conservation Award is made possible thanks to the generous contributions from Lee and Ramona Bass, American Farmland Trust, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Dixon Water Foundation, and Sand County Foundation.

ABOUT BOGGY SLOUGH CONSERVATION AREA

The 416-mile Neches River is often called the last wild river in East Texas.

The river’s slow-moving water and its pine and bottomland hardwood forests have been part of eastern Texas’s history and culture, since Native Americans and European settlers depended on them for food and shelter.

The Neches River’s corridor remains one of the state’s least discovered natural resources, but the Temple family has stewarded parts of this special area for over a century.

T.L.L. Temple, founder of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, bought a portion of what became known as Boggy Slough in 1902. Its 13,500 acres of timberland and 5,500 acres of wetland forests along 18 miles of river frontage were some of the first land he acquired outside of northeast Texas and Arkansas.

In the 1940s, the Temples began to shift the management of Boggy Slough toward wildlife and forest management research and demonstration. The land became a corporate asset of three Temple-owned businesses in the 1960s. By the 1980s, Boggy Slough had been divided into northern and southern management areas, each with its own hunting leases to control deer populations, as it remains today.

In 2012, ownership of Boggy Slough was transferred to International Paper through a corporate sale. Recognizing the land’s significance, the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, led by Board Chairman Arthur (Buddy) Temple, III, acquired the property in 2013. In 2015, an agreement was negotiated with The Conservation Fund to place a conservation easement over the property ensuring it will be protected and managed sustainably as a working forest in perpetuity. The easement was transferred to the Texas Land Conservancy in 2019.

Through the decades the Boggy Slough Conservation Area has become known for its ecological research, stewardship of natural resources, and outreach to promote conservation. Its landscape provides a unique mix of wet bottomland hardwood ecosystems, wet and dry transitional forests, and upland pine forests on the western edge of the Southeastern U.S. pine region.

Because quail, eastern wild turkey, and many plants need more sunlight than a closed canopy of pine provides, a focus at Boggy Slough has been providing open-canopy habitat within a working forest. Healthy forestland provides key habitat for white-tailed deer, migratory birds, songbirds, fish, and native plants.

Boggy Slough hosts seven clusters of the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, and a rare native wildflower, Texas prairie dawn. Its swamps and oxbows are also home to the Neches River Rose-mallow, an endangered plant that can grow up to 8 feet tall and produces hundreds of flowers that provide nectar for bees and other pollinating species.

The rich history and biodiversity of the Boggy Slough Conservation Area is underscored with the presence of two Texas State Champion Trees (the largest documented of their species): Longleaf pine and the White fringetree.

A cornerstone of the conservation success found at Boggy Slough is the role it has played for decades as an outdoor research laboratory for graduate students and other research collaborators studying issues of regional concern.

Boggy Slough Conservation Area Executive Director, Steve Jack, and Forest and Wildlife Manager, Robert Sanders, have enhanced the property’s reputation for ecological research, natural resource stewardship, and public outreach. Through active management and collaboration with state agencies, conservation organizations, and landowners, they have promoted a strong land ethic and a deeper commitment to conservation throughout East Texas.

The land management practices at Boggy Slough Conservation Area build on the Temple family’s legacy of conservation, stewardship, and philanthropy.

ACCOLADES

“Texas Parks and Wildlife is pleased to see this award go to such a deserving recipient. Boggy Slough has been a cornerstone of the Neches River corridor for the better part of a century. The careful stewardship of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation and its enrollment into a conservation easement ensure that it will continue to serve as that cornerstone and example of excellent land management for generations to come,” said Tim Siegmund, Private Lands Program Leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Wildlife Division.

“These award recipients are examples of how Aldo Leopold’s land ethic is alive and well today,” said Kevin McAleese, Sand County Foundation President and CEO. “Their dedication to conservation is both an inspiration to their peers as well as a reminder to all how important thoughtful agriculture is to clean water, healthy soil, and wildlife habitat.”

“As the national sponsor for Sand County Foundation’s Leopold Conservation Award, American Farmland Trust celebrates the hard work and dedication of the award recipients,” said John Piotti, AFT President and CEO. “At AFT we believe that exemplary conservation involves the land itself, the practices employed on the land, and the people who steward it. This award recognizes the integral role of all three.”

The first Texas Leopold Conservation Award was presented to Richards Ranch of Jacksboro in 2005. MT7 Ranch of Breckenridge received the 2024 award. For more information on the award, visit www.leopoldconservationaward.org.

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SAND COUNTY FOUNDATION inspires and empowers farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners to ethically care for the land to sustain water resources, build healthy soil, and enhance wildlife habitat. www.sandcountyfoundation.org