Passport to Texas

Preparing for a star party, image Chris Oswalt, TPWD

Variety Defines Nature Tourism Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

The term “nature tourism” has evolved to include a diverse range of outdoor activities. Advancements in new tools and technologies enhance the outdoor experience.

Nature tourism is any kind of tourism that allows people to connect with nature and provide economic impact to the local economies of rural communities especially but it can be big cities as well and this would include things as varied as camping, wildlife photography, wildlife viewing and birding, stargazing, any number of things that are a way to connect to nature.

Shelly Plante is the Nature Tourism Manager at Texas Parks and Wildlife

The things I think are possibly new to nature tourism beyond birding which everyone is fairly familiar with would include wildlife photography and butterflying. I think both of those have become really big. One thing with butterflying is, butterflies stay still, unlike birds. They do flit around but they stay in one area. You can have your field guide right in front of you.

In addition, access to smart phones and apps like iNaturalist allow explorers to snap photos and get immediate help identifying their observations.

Butterflying is easier than birding in many ways and it’s a great introduction to noticing the outside world.

Start planning your next outdoor adventure with the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Hawk Tower Bird Watching.

Texas: Blazing Trails in Nature Tourism Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Texas Parks and Wildlife brought the nature tourism movement to Texas in the 1990’s.

Madge Lindsay worked with a couple of other people and developed this idea of a birding trail.

Shelly Plante is the Nature Tourism Manager.

No one had ever linked together sites that were drivable distances from one another to say, here’s a marketing platform of ways that people can come to your area and enjoy nature. Wouldn’t it be great if we worked with local communities on this concept of nature tourism and developing the sites they already have and telling people about these wonderful birding sites because right now bird watchers know that they exist but people that just like nature may not realize it.

Local knowledge wasn’t always reliably shared.

So, let’s put them together in one big map and they can go from site to site to site and see a variety of habitat a variety of birds and have enhancements there that make it easy for them like boardwalks to viewing blinds, that sort of thing. So, there was a grant and they got it and the great Texas coastal birding trail was born out of that. We were the first state to do a birding trail.

More than 40 states now have birding trails.

It was really great timing and really great people at the right place at the right time made this amazing thing that’s been a boon for rural communities all over Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti…reminding you that life’s better outside.