A renewed commitment from longtime Texas conservation supporter Toyota will help make possible a wide range of public benefits for hunters and anglers, state park visitors, urban families, private land stewards and others who rely on Texas natural resources.

Fifteen Community Outdoors Outreach Program grants from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department totaling more than $629,000 will be helping thousands of Texas children explore and learn about the states’ cultural and natural resources.

The one-hour video documentary “The State of the Gulf—America’s Sea” will air in late February on all Texas public television stations, taking a broad look at the Gulf of Mexico almost a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

A lifelong passion for preserving prairie land seeded by a high school summer job that didn’t turn out quite like he expected has earned Panhandle rancher Jim Bill Anderson the 2010 Leopold Conservation Award for Texas, a prestigious recognition conferred by Sand County Foundation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as part of its Lone Star Land Steward Awards program.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) extended indefinitely the protection of seagrass within the Redfish Bay State Scientific Area (RBSSA) by a vote taken during Thursday’s Commission meeting. This ruling removes the termination date of the state scientific area designation and thus extends the “no uprooting seagrass with a boat propeller” law in the area.

Former Gov. William P. Clements has donated $1 million toward the planned second phase of the new Texas Game Warden Training Center in rural Hamilton County, bringing to $3 million his total contribution to the project.

The recently completed first phase of the new Texas Game Warden Training Center in rural Hamilton County will be dedicated in ceremonies set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.  Located on a 220-acre tract donated by the Police Assistance League of Texas, the state-of-the-art training facility near the small community of Star is the result of a public-private partnership that so far has raised more than half of the $20 million needed to complete the entire project.