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PINEYWOODS
[Please see region's
landscape video]
The Texas Pineywoods are found in a high-rainfall (40-56
inches/year),
17.5
million acre swath of East Texas. These lands include sandy, loamy, and
clay soils, and support a range of loblolly pine, shortleaf pine,
longleaf
pine, and slash pine in the better-drained areas, and a wide diversity
of
hardwoods in the bottomlands, such as
oaks,
sweetgums, elms, hickories, and baldcypress. The
Big
Thicket, in the
southeastern corner of this region, is known as the biological crossroads
of the the nation,
playing
host to temperate and subtropical, western and eastern species, ranging
from
roadrunners to alligators, mesquite to tupelo. This area is dominated by the wood products industry, as well as the
oil
and
gas industry. The major cities of the region include Huntsville,
Longview,
Marshall, Nacogdoches, and Tyler, although the southern outskirts of
Dallas
and the northern reaches of Houston and Beaumont are spreading into the
Pineywoods region.
Significant protected areas in the Pineywoods region include the
Angelina-Neches State Scientific Area (11,000 acres), the Big Thicket
National Preserve (86,038 acres), the Caddo Lake State Park and Wildlife
Management Area (7412 acres), the Gus Engeling State Wildlife Management
Area (11,034 acres), the Little Sandy National Wildlife Area and Old
Sabine
Bottom State Wildlife Management Area (8960 acres), the Pat Mayse State
Wildlife Management Area (7928 acres), the Trinity River National
Wildlife
Refuge (10,000 acres), and the Upland Island Wilderness Area (12,634
acres).
In addition, the Angelina National Forest (153,179 acres), Davy Crockett
National Forest (160,647 acres), Sabine National Forest (160,806 acres),
and
Sam Houston National Forest (163,037 acres) hold substantial acreage in
public ownership, although with extensive lumbering and mineral
activities
allowed.
The environmental challenges for the Pineywood region include several
problems. Reservoir construction for water supply and hydroelectricity
(including dams at Lakes Livingston, Palestine, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend,
and Wright Patman) have inundated bottomland hardwoods and changed flood,
siltation and nutrient-delivery regimes for much of east Texas.
Years of lumbering (the annual cut peaked as early as 1907) and fire
suppression in the area have significantly changed the ecological makeup
of
the region, as indicated by the likely extinction of the ivory-billed
woodpecker, and the extreme rarity of the red-cockaded woodpecker, both
of
which rely on old-growth stands. In addition to logging pressure, the
planting of formerly diverse forestlands to even-aged monoculture slash
pine
plantations has been troublesome: in 1975 there were 550,000 acres of
such
plantations, and by 1992, the plantation area had increased to 4.2
million
acres.
Recent efforts by major timber companies to liquidate their lands,
extending
over 1 million acres, have raised additional concerns about habitat
fragmentation and residential development in the Pineywoods.
Residential
development is a growing concern for the Pineywoods region: for
instance,
sprawl from Beaumont is bringing construction to the area near the Big
Thicket National Preserve.
Piney Woods
communities are represented in the archive by:
For more conservation information about the Pineywoods
region, please contact:
Audubon Dallas
Big Thicket Association
Caddo Lake Institute
Ducks Unlimited
Forest Trust
Sierra Club, Houston Group
Texas Conservation
Alliance
Texas Living Waters Initiative
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