Cactus Conservation in South Texas

#Lophophora williamsii grows in South Texas on sandy loam soils under a light canopy of mesquite, and it has been cultivated and maintained by people in the Rio Grande Valley for thousands of years.

Sadly, these plants have seen their habitat shrink with each passing year, as more land gets bulldozed by private landowners who view the plant community that Peyote is a part of - Tamaulipan Thornscrub - as useless and expendable.. better used for grazing cattle or worse, building strip malls and tract housing. More of that anthropocentrism and plant-blindness which is smothering Earth's biosphere.

The landowner here is an owner of a land clearing company and member of the Native American Church. He has been “rescuing” these plants for the last twenty years, in many cases stopping his bulldozers to remove plants. He has by default created a sanctuary for this species (as well as #Astrophytum) , and they occur naturally on his property (see pic with 2 year old seedlings) too.

En route to filming we see a parcel he had just cleared for a client who was creating cow pasture. The land barren and the brush still burning.

To learn more, please visit :

https://www.cactusconservation.org/

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Видео Cactus Conservation in South Texas канала Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't