T.L.L. Temple Foundation’s Boggy Slough Wins Conservation Prize

The Boggy Slough Conservation Area (BSCA), located along the Neches River in Houston and Trinity Counties, received the 2025 Texas Leopold Conservation Award as part of the annual Lone Star Land Steward Awards.

What is the Leopold Conservation Award?

The award, given in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold, recognizes extraordinary achievement in voluntary conservation and natural resource management by American ranchers, farmers, and foresters in 28 states.

In Texas, the award is presented by the Sand County Foundation and national sponsor American Farmland Trust, in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD).

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

Some of Boggy Slough's Contributions

The program has succeeded in spotlighting landowners who have prioritized habitat management and wildlife conservation on their properties – a key to long-term protection and restoration of Texas’s natural and cultural resources.

BSCA is bordered by 18 miles of the Neches River with about 4,500 acres of unique and pristine bottomland hardwood forests. The property hosts an abundance of wildlife including white-tailed deer, waterfowl, squirrels, red-cockaded woodpeckers and a host of other species.

Boggy Slough is considered by many to have “brought deer back into East Texas” through their historic 20th-century re-stocking program, as well as their devoted protection and management of the property.

Management practices on the property include prescribed fire, establishing native grass fields, herbicide control of invasive exotic plants, thinning timber stands to favor open pine savannahs, establishing and maintaining both longleaf and shortleaf pine species, and protection of several threatened or endangered species of plants and animals.  They continue to manage their timber stands through a conservative selection approach and not high-yield forest production.

The property is currently home to seven clusters of endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, and through continued management and thinning of timber stands, BSCA hopes to see an increase in those population numbers.

Additionally, BSCA has one of the largest colonies of the endangered Texas Prairie Dawn plant in Texas. The property has allowed a variety of genetic and pollination studies to be implemented on the property.

BSCA is also home to the threatened Neches River Rose mallow plant, which occurs at the edge of woodlands in open marshy habitats found in sloughs, oxbows, river terraces, and sand bars associated with the river and its tributaries.

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