ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

192 INTRODUCTION/CONSERVATION IN BIG THICKET
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, World War II produced an unprecedented demand for
lumber products (Cozine 1993). As a result, preservation efforts faded. Though the East Texas
Big Thicket Association continued to exist mostly on paper for a number of years, it eventually
expired in the late 1950s (Cozine 1993).
During this time, when little attention was focused on the area, Lance Rosier (Fig. 111;
see Johnston 1972), resident of Saratoga, self-trained naturalist, and widely recognized
authority on the Big Thicket, “almost single-handedly kept the Big Thicket movement alive”
(Johnston 2001). Johnston (2001) noted that,
His reputation and prestige grew as he interpreted Big Thicket to scientists, news reporters, and
an endless succession of students, conservationists, and civic groups. Through the years, Rosier
was the subject of numerous Sunday supplement stories and magazine articles. In the mid 1950
decade, Louis Hofferbert, Houston Post columnist, dubbed him ‘Mr. Big Thicket’ and the name
became fixed in area history. Rosier and the Big Thicket were further immortalized by Texas writer
Mary Lasswell, who wrote a perceptive chapter about Lance and the Big Thicket in her I’ll Take Texas
(1958). The book brought numerous recruits into the effort to save Big Thicket.
RENEWED EFFORTS—During the early to mid-1960s, organized conservation efforts were
renewed (e.g., Big Thicket Association founded in 1964), and some high profile advocates
(e.g., Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Senator Ralph Yarborough, and Texas
Governor Price Daniel) joined those concerned with preserving a portion of the Big
Thicket. However, there was strong opposition from the politically and economically powerful
timber industry. Lumber companies feared the loss of part of their “land base.” They
acted individually—and collectively through the Texas Forestry Association—against the
creation of all but a token-sized park (Gunter 1993). It should be pointed out, though, that
not all lumbermen or lumber companies approached the issue in the same way. According
to Reinert (1973):
Temple Industries, of all the major timber companies with large East Texas holdings, is the only one
that is locally owned. Together with the other companies, Temple declared a voluntary moratorium
on cutting in the general area of the proposed park, but their proscription was far more generous and
extensive, not to mention adhered to, than any other company’s. Moreover, Temple has foresworn
practices that the rest of the industry has found economical and environmentalists have termed
detestable: the wholesale clear-cutting of large timber stands and the razing of cut-over lands, the airborne
use of herbicides and defoliants to erase underbrush. Temple has also shown a willingness to
encourage slow-growing, often fragile stands of bottomland hardwoods…that other companies have
ignored in favor of quick-and-easy pine plantations.
Unfortunately, conservation efforts in the area were frequently met with “rancor and bitterness”
(Gunter 1993). Apparently, due to fear of change, worries about possible job losses, and ignorance
of the actual situation, some local residents were scared and so angry that they cut
down trees out of spite and threatened government appraisers with bodily harm (Owens
1978). In other cases, what can only be called anti-environmental vandalism was practiced.
In one instance, a huge magnolia tree, the Witness Tree, estimated by some to be 1,000 years
old, was killed when drilled in four places and poisoned with arsenate of lead (Gunter 1967,
1993). In another sad case, a large heron rookery was apparently intentionally poisoned by
aerial spraying with pesticides (Gunter 1993; Norsworthy 2001). The thinking of some
seemed to be that if the area was damaged enough, maybe a park would not be created.
Throughout struggles to conserve the Big Thicket, the desired size of the preserve varied
greatly, ranging from the 435,000 acres originally called for by the East Texas Big Thicket
Association to the 200,000 acres that was the consensus of scientists in the early 1970s