The Houston Audubon (HAS) Land Rescue Fund was established in 2007 through a generous grant from a Houston businesswoman for the purposes of acquiring, conserving, and managing ecologically sensitive habitat within the State of Texas. The HAS Land Rescue Fund serves as a ready source of funds for land acquisition and protection when circumstances don’t allow time to raise the dollars needed to purchase specific tracts of land. It also provides funds needed to pay costs associated with management of the land. Most important of all, the Land Rescue Fund allows Houston Audubon to target important habitat and proactively acquire it rather than having to respond in emergency mode when land is already at risk of being developed.

The flexibility of the Land Rescue Fund also allows Houston Audubon to access it for support of land conservation projects by other organizations. Already, two important land conservation projects have received financial support from Houston Audubon through the Fund - an acquisition of land by USFWS in the Columbia Bottomlands and a conservation easement by Nature Conservancy of Texas on important Whooping Crane habitat on the Central Texas Coast (see Land Conservation Projects webpage). Houston Audubon is in the process of developing a comprehensive approach to habitat conservation that will establish priorities for its own land acquisitions and for support of land conservation by other groups through partnerships with state and federal agencies, other conservation organizations, and grassroots groups.

A generous donation in the amount of $250,000 kicked off the fund in 2007. In 2008, a further donation in the form of a challenge grant provided the opportunity to add an additional $500,000 to the fund through a challenge grant. Under the terms of the challenge grant, the donor will match any funds received from other donors, dollar-for-dollar, up to $250,000 in 2009.

YOU CAN BE A PART OF THIS EXCITING EFFORT BY MAKING A CHECK OUT TO GREATER HOUSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, BEING SURE TO NOTE THAT IT IS FOR THE HAS LAND RESCUE FUND, then mailing it to Houston Audubon at 440 Wilchester Boulevard, Houston, TX 77079. If you have any questions or wish to discuss a donation, please contact HAS Executive Director Gina Donovan at 713-932-1639.