Respect Big Bend Sumit on Healthy Lands and Energy Development

Midland, Texas (December 28, 2021)—The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and Sul Ross State University will hold a “Summit on Healthy Lands and Energy Development” on January 20, 2022 from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm at the Bush Convention Center in Midland. The goal of the summit is to explore ideas for reducing the negative impacts of all forms of energy development on land through collaborative, voluntary projects that engage private landowners, community leaders, and energy companies.

The event will showcase successful land conservation initiatives that have been carried out by a number of energy companies and will focus on the importance of replicating good ideas and engaging in dialog with various stakeholders to reduce conflicts about energy development.

Representatives from the Respect Big Bend (RBB) initiative joined the Advanced Power Alliances’ December 1 meeting to discuss the initiative and its recently launched conservation values mapping tool.

Created by the Mitchell Foundation in 2019, Respect Big Bend’s intent was to convene landowners, community members, conservation organizations and energy industry representatives to empower all stakeholders to protect the unique resources and communities of the Greater Big Bend Region while developing energy responsibly.

The three-year RBB stakeholder engagement process culminated in May with the release of comprehensive summary and technical reports, which detailed how potential energy developments could be proactively considered alongside landscape values to minimize or even avoid harmful impacts altogether. The upshot is a process that protects conservation and community values, while smoothing the path for responsible energy projects.

In January 2022, Respect Big Bend will launch an online conservation values mapping platform that allows users to examine individual ecological, social, and energy layers across an 18-county swath of West Texas.

These layers include intact landscapes, existing view sheds and dark skies, electricity transmission lines, pipelines, and potential wind and solar development scenarios. The tool’s greatest value comes from the way it shows the intersections of these layers. For example, a conscientious wind developer could find where tracts of usable land overlap with view sheds and work to install turbines in other areas. To facilitate this kind of detailed analysis, the tool allows users to upload shape files for specific tracts of land.

Going forward, the Respect Big Bend team aims to encourage advocates, policymakers, and corporations to employ the online platform and related principles in development decision-making. In addition, Sul Ross State University will launch a new Center for Landowner and Community Engagement in January to provide technical assistance to landowners, community members and energy companies and facilitate the use of the online mapping tool in energy siting.

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For more information, please contact Brett Holmes at bholmes@cgmf.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A screenshot from the RBB mapping tool shows the overlap between West Texas view sheds and land with high potential for wind development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A screenshot from the RBB mapping tool shows detailed analysis for a shape file in Reeves County.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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