On a recent early spring day, Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert and Brazoria County Judge Joe King sat together at a little out-of-the-way café between the two counties, and agreed to work together on a project that proposes to augment and improve the features of the much-maligned Brazos River, for the enjoyment of generations to come. That meeting set the stage for a grassroots effort of the counties, along with the Houston Wilderness organization, that will eventually produce a river’s edge greenspace comparable to The Spring Creek Greenway, unveiled this past February in The Woodlands.

The Sam Houston Trail and Wilderness Preserve is a proposed 600-plus-mile “emerald necklace” of multi-use trails and greenspace that includes portions of the Brazos River in Fort Bend and Brazoria Counties. The collaborative project will link the natural beauty and unique biodiversity found within the 24-county southeast Texas area through a network of wilderness preserves, parks, waterways, nature centers and trails.

Fort Bend and Brazoria counties share the Brazos River and its uniquely important Columbia Bottomlands ecoregion. A ribbon of protected and restored Columbia Bottomlands will provide residents with a rich array of recreation choices: boating, hiking, bird watching, horseback riding, bicycling – as well as quiet places to relax and reconnect with nature. The economy of the region will be positively impacted as businesses attract and retain employees whose priorities include quality of life. And, like the western segment of the 650 mile Sam Houston Trail and Wilderness Preserve, it is predicted to attract nature tourism and spur the type of economic development that comes with having a world class destination. The entire southeast Texas area will benefit from the vast array of year-round recreational opportunities provided by this endeavor.

The Columbia Bottomlands is also a critical habitat for an estimated 239 million birds that rest and refuel during spring migration. A direct benefit of the efforts of this project will be a contiguous linear connected wildlife habitat plus support and preservation of some of the region’s most significant natural and historic assets. Other potential advantages include improved water quality and a reduction in flooding damage, as well as economic development opportunities associated with ecotourism.

The Sam Houston Trail and Wilderness Preserve project is being facilitated by Houston Wilderness, a broad-based alliance of business, environmental and government interests founded in 2002 to protect, preserve and promote the unique biodiversity of the region’s precious remaining ecological capital.