- "Making of a Million" is made possible by H-E-B.

You can learn more about their sustainability efforts at OurTexasOurFuture.com.

(soft majestic music) (wind whooshing) - There's hardly a part of Texas that's more iconically Texan than the West.

(coyote howling) The people, places, and animals that call it home are almost mythological.

(mountain lion growling) (majestic music continues) It's John Wayne in land form, rugged, grizzled, a bit lonesome, and bulletproof, but is it?

From the peaks of its sky islands to the depths of its waterways, let's explore the Wild West of Texas.

From the coast to the West, Texas covers over 170 million acres.

It's home to tens of thousands of native plants and animals, and some of the most beautiful, diverse lands in the country.

(birds calling) Lands that are changing fast.

I'm Chet Garner.

Let's take a trip with The Nature Conservancy in Texas to visit the people in places who've helped protect more than one million acres of Lone Star lands, both for our generation and the ones to come.

(insects chirping) (soft bright music) You know, I vividly remember the first time I came to West Texas.

I was in high school on a Boy scout backpacking trip, and oh man, it made an impression on me.

I'd been to the Rockies before, but this was different.

It was desert and mountains all together in this strange sort of dance, and you know, to this day, I still encounter people who think Texas is dry and flat, well, mostly flat, and while, yeah, that's kind of true for part of the state, it's definitely far from the whole truth, especially out here in West Texas.

(soft orchestral music) Where West Texas begins and ends is up for debate, but it's an area roughly the size of its own state, much of which falls within a greater region known as the Chihuahuan Desert.

And one of the most spectacular places in the region is right where we are gonna start.

(soft orchestral music continues) (truck whooshing) - Hey Chet, welcome to the Davis Mountains Preserve.

- I love it out here, Kaylee.

- Oh my gosh.

- It's stunning.

I mean, the mountains, I think there's still people who have no idea.

We have mountains in Texas.

- Absolutely, So this is one of the most special areas of the state, really and truly, that most people don't know about.

(soft orchestral music continues) - This preserve is 33,000 acres of Davis Mountains wilderness with 50 miles of trails and the crown jewel of the entire range, Mount Livermore.

(soft orchestral music continues) Ah, but this preserves purpose goes far beyond just protecting a place for us to play.

- We absolutely want people to get out and actually see these spaces, but first and foremost for us is conservation.

Our mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends, and with that, it's conservation and active management on these preserves.

- Is the idea to keep it as pristine as possible?

- Absolutely, but with that, lots of people think it's just putting a fence around it and calling it protected.

- Yeah, it's like, "Whoop!"

- But it's not that, it's actually active management on the preserves.

- Okay.

- As well as research.

- The Nature Conservancy has had a hand in protecting some of the most revered places in West Texas.

They helped expand Big Bend National Park by 57,000 acres, and they protect one-of-a-kind places like Dolan Falls on the Devil's River.

Today, The Nature Conservancy manages six different preserves throughout the West Texas region, each one unique and vitally important.

And Kaylee has agreed to help us hit the trail to see some of her favorite places in this preserve.

(soft music) - So Chet, we're walking through what's called a sky island of West Texas.

It's totally different landscape, so we get a completely different ecosystem up at the high elevations, 'cause you get more water up here, you get cooler temperatures, and that supports this relic population of plants and animals that can't survive at the lower elevations.

(bright guitar music) So we're gonna look out on the landscape.

You can actually see the highest peak in the Davis Mountains over here is Mount Livermore.

- Ah.

- And that tippy-top peak over there is Baldy Peak, which is on top of it.

- I know it well.

- You've hiked it before?

- I did, I did.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- A few years ago, my crew and I huffed to the top of that peak on an open weekend.

It is a view every adventurer should seek out.

(bright guitar music continues) When the first modern explorer summited in 1895, well, they discovered a cache of 1,700 stone points, meaning this peak has been very special to humans for a very long time.

(birds singing) - And then also over here, we've actually got Sawtooth Mountain on the landscape, and that's not actually on The Nature Conservancy's property, - Okay.

- But it is under conservation easement with us.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, so it's protected.

- Okay, so the preserve is just over 30,000 acres, how many acres do you have under conservation around it?

- We actually have over twice as much, so we have a little over 65,000 acres of conservation easement.

- Wow.

- Yeah, which is a testament to the private landowners in the area really wanting to protect and conserve their properties.

- Yes.

When a landowner agrees to a conservation easement, they make a legal commitment that follows the land.

It's their pledge to keep the land wild, as well as to protect its natural and cultural resources.

And with over 95% of Texas soil being privately owned, easements are a way for these landowners to ensure their special piece of Texas stays wild and intact for future generations to enjoy.

Well, anyone who comes out here should be able to see like, okay- - Absolutely.

- This needs to be protected- - Yeah.

- Forever.

- Absolutely.

(bright ambient music) - Let's talk about sky islands.

So there are three primary islands in West Texas, the Davis Mountains, the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park, and the Guadalupe Mountains, home to our highest peak and inside the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

(bright orchestral music) Each has its own unique ecosystem that's very different from the surrounding desert floor with animals you won't find elsewhere, including hundreds of unique bird species and bears.

(soft quirky music) We're in bear country.

- Absolutely.

- So we got a lot - So bears here- - On the preserve, or?

- We have a few on the preserve that kind of come and go.

The black bear was actually killed off from this region back in the early 1900s to 1950s, so they've really been reestablishing the Trans-Pecos up from Mexico, but we do see them on the preserve.

- I mean, that's a lot of miles to put on for these things.

- It is a lot of miles.

(quirky music continues) - Scientists estimate there are about 75 bears living in West Texas.

Small, but considering that number came up from zero is amazing.

(suspenseful ambient music) That's not to mention (mountain lion growling) the true apex predator of the West, the mountain lion.

(growling intensifies) (suspenseful music continues) Human encounters are rare, considering hundreds, maybe even thousands, call West Texas home.

(mountain lion growling) I want to encounter a mountain lion, but I also secretly don't want to encounter a mountain lion.

- Yes, from a distance, right?

- Yes, like- - Like, from quite a distance.

- I could see it maybe on the other side of a ridge.

- Yeah.

- These wild animals of West Texas are one of the best parts and need plenty of wide open spaces to roam.

(mountain lion growling) - Can you guess what kind - No way!

- Of track that is?

- Well, I would say deer, but that looks a little bigger than a deer.

- This is actually an elk track.

- No way.

- Yeah.

We have these all over the preserve, and we're about to enter into rut, actually, their breeding season, when the males really start doing that kind of eerie call on the preserve.

It's phenomenal to hear.

(elk calling) (soft music) - There are parts of West Texas where bighorn sheep again roam the hills.

Pronghorn run through the lowland prairies, and peregrine falcons nest on the rocky cliffs, but we don't just care about the animals, we care deeply about the plants, too, right?

Because you can't have one without the other, and all of nature is intertwined.

- Lots of people come out to the Davis Mountains 'cause we have all these really cool birds, and maybe you'll see a black bear or a mountain lion.

- Yeah, yeah?

- But the thing that all of those animals relies on are the trees and the plants.

They're the base of the food web.

- So these trees around us are very special?

- So ponderosa pines are one of the biggest kinds of trees that we have in Texas.

They're definitely the biggest tree we have out here in West Texas.

(soft bright music) (birds chirping) - Ponderosa pines, they can grow to over 100 feet tall and are only found in Texas, in the Davis Mountains, the Guadalupe Mountains, and the Chisos.

Sadly, over the past decade, 75% of the ponderosas inside this preserve have been lost to fire, drought, and pests.

The Nature Conservancy in Texas is working diligently with partners like the Texas A&M Forest Service to make sure this ponderosa population stays healthy, and luckily, it looks like it's working.

- Baby ponderosa pine here.

- Little baby ones.

- Just different ones, you have to pet them (Chet laughing) just to tell them that they're doing a good job.

Ponderosa pine has this 10-year sequence of weather and fire that has to line up for them to successfully reproduce.

- So why ponderosa pines?

Why so much effort into protecting this tree?

- This is the tree that's holding an entire ecosystem together, and there's a lot of animals that depend on having a really big pine tree, that depend on having the seeds from this pine tree.

If we lose these trees, there's nothing to replace it.

No plan B, there's no backup.

This is the only tree that can support all of those animals.

(soft quirky music) So one of the cool things about ponderosa pines is that their bark smells like vanilla.

- You're lying.

- But it only works if you really get up close.

(Chet laughing) - This sounds like a prank to me.

- Oh no, well, try it out.

(soft quirky music continues) (Chet sniffing) - It smells like vanilla!

- It's our vanilla tree.

(Chet sniffing) - Oh my gosh.

You gotta really bury your nose in the bark.

- You do, it's a deep, deep scent.

(soft quirky music continues) (Chet sniffing) - This is what active land management looks and smells like.

(Chet sniffing) (soft quirky music continues) (birds chirping softly) So Kaylee, in your time living out here, have you seen West Texas change much?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

So we're constantly changing out here.

We deal with a lot of challenges.

So everything from drought, I mean, water is incredibly important in the desert, right?

- Yeah.

- To land use change, land use fragmentation.

It can be development.

- Okay.

- It can be agricultural, it can be ranching.

- As The Nature Conservancy, how do you steward people and land through these dramatic changes?

- Partnerships and relationships with the landowners are absolutely what we have to strive for in these areas.

Sometimes we're the forefront, but sometimes the private landowner is, and working together to make those goals happen across big, intact landscapes is really our goal.

(soft orchestral music) - Of the million acres protected in Texas, over 430,000 of them are still private land.

So to maintain our biodiversity of plants and animals, it truly takes all of us who call a piece of Texas home.

(soft orchestral music continues) (soft quirky music) Ooh, the Davis Mountains always impress, don't they?

But I really love this idea of balancing conservation with private land rights.

I mean, protecting land, but making sure its owners can still use it, you know what I mean, because, like, at the end of the day, what good is ranch land to a rancher if he can't ranch it?

And so now, we're gonna head into the lowland deserts around Marathon, Texas to talk to a rancher about how she balances conservation with beef.

(bright music) This is the domain of the prairie dogs, the pronghorn, and the everyday families who live both on and with the land.

(cart rumbling softly) Well, I gotta say, it's always beautiful every time I come to West Texas, even just being down here in the grasslands.

- Yeah, and for me, the grasslands, they're my favorite.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Why is that?

- Well, you know, I grew up in a big grassland.

I actually grew up just about 15 miles from here.

Those big, open grasses, you get big rains, you get these big overflows.

That just- - It just hits?

- Yeah, it's just, you know, it's like, that's home, you know?

- Bonnie is a dean and professor at nearby Sul Ross State University, teaching students about land use and conservation.

She's also a fourth-generation Texas rancher.

- Whoo!

Come on, babies!

(cattle mooing) - They're talking back!

(Chet laughing) How long did it take you to find that call?

- (laughs) So that's something my dad, like, does.

- Okay.

- So a lot of ranchers use their horns, but, (chuckles) - Yeah, no, no, no.

- They're really loud.

- I like that.

- (chuckles) Come on, ladies!

(cattle mooing) - We got you, we got you.

(cattle mooing) These have gotta be the tamest species in West Texas, everything else runs away.

This one's gotta be pregnant?

- Huh, no, Pud is not pregnant.

That's what we look for.

(cattle continue mooing) So what we're trying to do is actually get a cow that matches the country, that matches the ranch, so we're looking for cows that are pretty short and really wide, 'cause they need to be able to take in a lot of really low-quality grass and do really good on it.

(insects chirping) (soft guitar music) - What's the hardest part of running a cattle operation in West Texas?

- Drought, by far.

- Drought, yeah.

- You get into drought, and these guys have to eat.

Fastest way to go broke is buying hay.

So you gotta make hard decisions, you gotta have a drought plan.

You gotta manage your country so that as soon as it rains, (cattle mooing) you're gonna catch those raindrops, not let 'em get off.

- Yeah.

- One of the things that I really teach in my classes is that adaptive management.

Weather patterns and climate change are the rule.

You know, whether you wanna argue about whether it's manmade climate change or whether it's natural climate change, doesn't matter.

You got a plan that the climate is not the same as it was in the 1880s when my great grandparents came down here.

It's just not.

- Yeah.

Rainfall patterns in West Texas tell an unsettling story.

In nearby Marfa, for the past 60 years, annual rainfall has been around 15 inches per year.

However, over the last 20, that number has dropped by nearly half.

Everyone out here is learning to adapt on the fly.

The Nature Conservancy in Texas works with partners trying to find the ever-changing point where both the land, the ranch, and the rancher can thrive, because what's best for the ranch land can also be what's best for the rancher if we're willing to learn together, which is the primary purpose of the Dixon Water Foundation's Mimms Unit Ranch in Marfa, Texas.

I don't often associate cattle with Marfa, you know what I mean?

Marfa's got its iconic art scene, but you know, that's a very small part of the actual lifestyle of Marfa, right?

- Yeah, and one thing that I think drew the art scene here was the open spaces, you know?

I think the reason you have these big landscapes is because a lot of them are still big ranches, and they were back then as well.

- The Dixon Water Foundation runs a different kind of ranch.

It's an educational one with 30 segmented pastures used for research and as an outdoor classroom.

- This is an operational cattle ranch, and what we do is we try to use grazing as a management tool to promote watershed health, really through promoting healthy soils.

How much plant material can we use to make a productive cattle operation, but how much can we leave behind to catch the rain when it comes and promote a healthy water cycle?

- So this is the proving ground for regenerative grazing, and so you can bring in ranchers and say, "Look, this really does work."

- That's what we try to do, but then some of the other trends we're seeing is really just decreased rainfall.

We're in a drier time right now, so with less rainfall, there's less grass growth, and that might mean less cattle out here on the landscape.

I mean, that's the other thing about not grazing all the grass out.

We want this ranch to be sustainable for generations to come.

You talk to a lot of ranchers, that's what they really care about, you know?

- Through collaboration and in partnership with numerous landowners and partners across our state, The Nature Conservancy is able to help us all better understand these Texas lands and how to move forward into an uncertain and perhaps drier future.

And while much of West Texas is dry, there are places where springs of life seem to flow up from the stones, and from the Rio Grande to the Pecos, to the Devil's River, which is considered the most pristine river in Texas, West Texas water is truly life giving.

(majestic orchestral music) However, year over year, water in the West becomes a much more precious resource, and so The Nature Conservancy has been working in some of the most unexpected places to protect the water we still have.

(animals chirping) - Welcome to Diamond Y Spring Preserve.

So we're here in Pecos County.

- Remote Pecos County.

- Remote Pecos County.

- (chuckles) I mean, what?

- We're in the middle of the desert, in the middle of an oil field, and we're at what's called a cienega.

It's a desert wetland system.

- What?

- Anytime you've got water in the desert, it's special.

- Yeah.

- It's important.

(soft music) - It's not much to look at, but this spring was found when a fish scientist was making small talk about extinct fish species in a local cafe.

A rancher overheard and said, "Man, those aren't extinct.

I got some of them on my property," and sure enough, he was right.

- So we're actually looking at two endangered species right here.

We have seven endangered species on the preserve.

- What in the world?

- Two of them are fish.

That's the Leon Springs pupfish right there, that cool, silver blue, and then a lot of the rest of 'em are what's called Pecos gambusia.

So we now have it here at the Diamond Y Spring Preserve and nowhere else on Earth.

- So these little freshwater pockets have been so isolated for so long that these fish have become their own species?

- Exactly.

- Can we get a closer look at 'em?

- Let's do it.

(bright guitar music) Here you go, Chet, meet the Leon Springs pupfish.

- Oh, there he is.

Look at that.

I mean, the consequence, if we lose springs like this, we're literally talking about the extinction of a species.

- Extinction of a species.

- That's crazy.

(bright guitar music continues) Just for kicks, let's see how deep this is.

It's still going.

Still going.

All right, this did not even hit the bottom.

(bright guitar music continues) - Chet's got four pupfish in there and one of the Pecos gambusia.

- Ryan, that's incredible.

A lot of people are gonna look and say, "Why?

Why go through so much trouble for something that little?"

- You might not need to, but let's think a little bit more about where the fish is, and here, we're talking about water in the desert, where one water supply after another has been pumped out from under the spring.

So the fact that we've still got these here means that we've got at least one place where there's potential, where we can get that balance right, because we don't, you know, as a nature conservancy or conservationist, we don't wanna say, "That and not me," or "that and not crops," "that or not energy," but there is a way where we can do both.

We can have both.

- You know that phrase, "You don't know what you got till it's gone"?

Well, let's hope we never get there with that pupfish, but it does remind me of something else that most Texans have lost, and well, sadly, it's been gone so long that most of us have forgotten we ever had it to begin with.

But out here in West Texas, well, they've still got it, and they're doing everything they can to keep it.

I'm talking about dark skies.

(soft ambient music) - Yeah, over 90% of Texans today live in an area with too much light pollution to see the Milky Way, and I think that's sad, and a lot of the folks who come here, this is where they see the true night sky for the first time, right?

As soon as you see what it really is like, then you get an appreciation for it.

- Wow.

The McDonald Observatory sits inside one of the darkest regions on Earth, making it world class for stargazers and astronomers alike.

The Nature Conservancy helped protect the land around it over 60 years ago, and continues to work with landowners to protect the skies above it.

There's a lot more to dark skies than just what we can enjoy from the stars, right?

- Yes, yeah, wildlife is heavily affected by artificial light at night as well.

It's not just astronomers who care about the night sky.

Migratory birds often use the stars in the sky or the moon to navigate during migration season.

Sea turtles hatching on the coast want to go towards the light of the moon over the water when they first hatch.

What if there's something brighter on the shore?

They'll go towards that instead.

- So does West Texas have to take, you know, dramatic steps to preserve the night sky?

- It takes a lot of effort, education, and outreach, but the actual steps are pretty simple.

Instead of aiming lights up at an angle, just aim 'em flat towards the ground so the light goes on the ground where you actually need it.

- Okay.

- Lower the intensity, use a more amber color, and the simplest thing, turn lights off when you don't need them.

For almost all of human history, night has been dark.

It's only in the last 100 years that we've altered that.

- Right.

- That we've changed the natural order of things, - Man, I don't know if it's worked out in our favor, Stephen.

With the dark skies, scientists come from all over the world to use these telescopes.

(motor whirring) (soft ambient music continues) Wow.

- This is our 2.7 meter or 107-inch telescope.

- Okay.

- It's how wide the diameter of its mirror is.

- So what sort of research does this thing do nowadays?

- It does all kinds of things, but mostly, what we do is we look at a star's spectrum.

- Okay.

- Kind of break the starlight out into its component colors, and we study that.

We actually have an astronomer here tonight.

Why don't we see what she's up to?

Hey, Zoe, how's it going?

- Good, how are you.

- Zoe, so you're doing real science over here, huh?

- I am doing real science over here, I would say.

- That's awesome.

- So the project that I'm specifically working on is looking at stars that have died and then eaten their planets.

- Carnivorous stars?

- So I'm trying to find out, exactly.

- Cool.

- I'm trying to find out how these stars ate their planets and what those planets were actually made of.

- Wow.

(crickets chirping) This is work that can't be done without dark skies, and as Stephen said, seeing is believing.

- Step on up, have a look through the telescope.

You'll see the moon.

(Chet laughing) - It takes up the whole fray!

- Oh yeah, you're looking at a tiny slice.

- Oh my gosh.

(soft orchestral music) - It really makes you feel small, doesn't it?

- It really does, yeah.

Well, I mean, just you come out here, Stephen, and you step into your world, I wish every Texan lived under dark skies like this.

This is special.

[Stephen] It is pretty special, isn't it?

Yeah, it never gets old.

(soft orchestral music continues) - From the skies above to the waters below, West Texas certainly lives up to its reputation as some of the toughest, most awe-inspiring land in the Lone Star state, but behind its staggering peaks and remarkable creatures is a quickly-changing ecosystem where people, animals, and the land itself must learn to adapt together.

Yes, West Texas is stunning, and it's gonna take all of us to keep it that way.

- "Making of a Million" is made possible by H-E-B.

You can learn more about their sustainability efforts at OurTexasOurFuture.com.