- [music]
[birds chirping]
- DAVID BAMBERGER: Fifty years ago you couldn't hardly walk
through this place.
It was wall-to-wall brush.
There wasn't any grass.
There wasn't any water.
Nobody wanted it.
- [music, water running]
- BAMBERGER: On the truck, on the truck.
[laughing]
You're the finest dog in the United States of America,
in Texas too.
[laughing]
Well, I was born in Ohio, born into poverty
to be honest about it.
We lived out in the country amongst the Amish people.
So I really got my life example set for me by my own mother.
That's were my love of the natural world came from,
I've never inherited a nickel, but I inherited a love for the
natural world and a respect for it.
When I got out of the University, I took a job,
I sold vacuum cleaners door to door.
I went into the fast food business.
I teamed up with a young man, Bill Church, and it was
Church's Fried Chicken and we built that company up
to over 1,600 stores and we sold it.
And with that capital I was able to come here and begin my work
on Selah Bamberger Ranch Preserve.
My objective was to take the worst piece of land I could
possibly find in the Hill Country of Texas
and begin a process of restoration that would
change it back to be one of the best, and that has happened
right here, by habitat restoration, by working
with Mother Nature instead of against her
and that's what we're all about.
- [music]
- Forty-six years ago, not a drop of water.
Seven water wells were drilled, 500 foot deep.
Not a one produced any water.
The top 125 foot of these hills looks like this.
It's Edward's Lime Stone.
When the driller drilled all those wells for me he said,
"Bamberger, the one place up here on the top,
my bit dropped 40 foot."
He said, "You've got a cavern under there,
it's like an auditorium."
The only thing about it was, 46 years ago it had no water in it,
it was dry.
It was dry because the water that was coming in was running
off as opposed to sinking in.
When I came here all of the little holes in all of that
limestone were just as dry as the one that I'm
holding in my hand.
Now what happened?
We replaced that condition with this condition.
Two-and-a-half years after we began, the first spring
came to life.
[water trickling]
As we continued on, another spring showed up.
We got up to where we had 11.
Where'd the water come from?
It came out of all of that holes in that perched aquifer
like that.
That's where it come from.
It was stored in the earth all because of one thing, this one.
And I'm telling you, I'm going to show you the greatest
conservation tool ever made, and everything I talk about
could not have happened without grass.
The hill country is just covered with woody species.
Primarily it's cedar.
We took out a great portion of it here on the ranch,
we were just covered with it, we had no grass.
When we took out the cedar and spread native grass seeds
and it began to grow, rain fall then percolated into the earth
because of the root system of grass going down.
Water percolates and it fills up your aquifer.
Until the aquifer is full, and when it's full it has to come
out somewhere, and they call that a spring.
That spring supplied water for all of nature's critters,
plus for all the families that live here, and it even sends
water downstream to the city of Austin.
- [music]
And what does it cost?
Our governments and governments all around the world,
they're spending millions and millions of dollars doing
all kinds of things, dams and reservoirs and pipelines.
All of this can be done by you and I.
We don't have to have government, we can't expect
government to do it all anyway.
But if we do have some conservation ethics,
the results are mind boggling.
- TEACHER: Now, do we see that kind of erosion here?
- DAVID: I'm telling you truthfully.
I've seen this property and the experiences that people have
here change lives.
- STUDENT: What does Selah mean?
- DAVID: Oh, beautiful.
Thank you so much.
What does Selah mean?
When I was younger, I discovered in the Psalms the word Selah.
It means to stop,
to pause,
to look around you,
and reflect on everything you see.
- [music]
To me that's like Thoreau was to Walden Pond.
It gives us a chance to say, "What's my duty as a steward of
this ranch land," and I believe it's to take care of it
and to share it.
And if you don't share what you have you're going to
live a lonely life.
- [music]
That is a necessary ingredient for every human being that we
need to catch up and live amongst Mother Nature
and learn to appreciate her for what she really is.
I've given this land to the foundation.
It will go on in perpetuity.
It will never be any different than you see it today.
- [music]
When I leave this world, that's what I want as
part of my legacy.
- [music]