(dove)
(music)
(water splash)
[Timothy Birdsong] Texas has over a hundred ninety one thousand
miles of wild and scenic rivers and over 95 percent of the state is in private ownership.
We have state owned public reaches of stream but it's difficult to access those areas because
of private ownership of river banks.
(flowing water)
[John Botros] I coordinate a little program called the River
Access and Conservation Program.
We call it RACA for short.
We find land owners that are willing to allow access across their property.
[Timothy] We've created these access opportunities on
places like the Brazos River, the Guadalupe River, Neches River...at this point over a
hundred miles of Texas rivers.
(flowing water)
[John] Running a program like this requires lots
of different expertise.
We've done a pretty good job and I cannot be prouder of my team.
(flowing water)
(music)
[Joe Joplin] Imagine walking through a desert landscape
just completely dry, full of cactus, and all of a sudden you come over this edge of a mesa
and you look down and you see what you believe to be a mirage of Carribean like turquoise water.
And that's the same vision that people from 10,000 years that have lived in this area,
you know prehistoric humans, have been drawn to that same view.
(music)
[Beau Hester] It has a special way of you becoming a part of the river.
[Joe] Well, the history of the RACA program, it
came about by me going to Austin to the Parks and Wildlife Headquarters, and in the meeting
room before the meeting, there was an issue of Parks and Wildlife magazine there on the
table and in that magazine there was a story about this program.
I got back, I talked to Beau, we reached out to Tim Birdsong in the fisheries and he said
yeah this would this would work if you want to reach out to landowners and see if there is some interest.
[Beau] Most of the land owners, who are staunch protectors
and guardians of the river, they didn’t say no, but they said heck no.
The last land owner that we asked and that Joe asked was Dell Dickinson at Skyline Ranch.
[Dell Dickinson] The best way to protect the river was keep people off.
I was totally against it.
[Beau] And Dell said no, and I thought we were, that
the program was dead in the water.
(music)
(dragging boat)
[Dell] As people have come in over the years they
don't have the same sense of history and heritage that the old folks do.
However, I've also found the longer those folks are out here, the more they have come
to appreciate what we consider so dear.
(water)
[Joe] I get a random call like I do every once in awhile from him
and he said, remember that conversation we had two weeks ago, Joe? And I was like, yeah.
And he was like well, you know, I think we want to pursue that.
[Beau] Dell and I met Riverside and had a frank conversation
about active monitoring on the site.
[Beau] Is everybody tent camping, or is anyone sleeping on flat rocks in the group?
[Paddler] I think we might have one sleeping on flat rocks.
[Dell] I was astounded at the results.
They were almost immediate and from my standpoint, totally effective.
We had, historically, ever increasing trespassing incidents and trash incidents.
Those, essentially, went to zero.
(water flowing)
[Dell] I would give almost anything to protect this river.
(music)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my hope is that we all don’t love it to death.
[Beau] I do have a five-year-old son, Benjamin will
be six in August.
I would hope that we can take care of the river, so that when he’s old enough, he
can go experience the same river then, as we enjoy today.
(flowing water)
[Beau] This place is cleansing to the soul.
(flowing water)
(music)