Welcome to the Houston Sierra Club online Bayou Banner newsletter for September 2023. Click the title to see the news this month.

This summer has certainly made Houston area residents aware of the issues related to extreme heat! But some neighborhoods deal with higher heat impacts than others.

On August 17, 2023, the Texas Conservation Alliance and Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club (Sierra Club) met with the U.S. Forest Service, National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, to continue a discussion about collaboration and other issues.

On September 14, our speaker will be Martin Hagne, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Observatory. Many who don't know the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, think they just watch birds. The GCBO has been a leader in avian conservation work.

On September 20, Matthew Strausser, a wildlife biologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center, will discuss insect conservation. Insects are an essential component for food webs, pollination and overall biodiversity.

This year, 2023, marks the 100th anniversary of the Texas State Parks system. One positive development in this year's Texas Legislative Session is the constitutional amendment, Proposition 14, that will create the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund.

The Big Thicket was once a 3.5-million-acre forest. The fight to establish a Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP) took 45 years to accomplish. Today, BTNP is consists of 15 units and has grown from 84,550-acres to over 113,000-acres as of 2020.

In July 2023, four wildfires started in Indian Mounds and or Upland Island Wilderness Areas and all were caused by lightning. Many forest ecosystems historically evolved with lightning fires.