Each week, Ina Alexatos drives throughout Wimberley in a Subaru Forester with the words Trees for the Blanco printed across the side. She visits riverside landowners one by one to consult them on letting their banks go wild. She then stakes orange flags to mark where a variety of trees — bald cypress, sycamore, pecan — will be planted by volunteers, private contractors or Texas Conservation Corps.
Alexatos works as the reforestation coordinator on the Blanco River for Austin-based nonprofit TreeFolks. Last year, TreeFolks consulted 75 landowners and planted trees on their stretches of river. This year, Alexatos and her team will visit 75 more, and so on for however many years it takes to consult all landowners who have reached out for their services. So far, 270 landowners have applied.
Ultimately, landowners choose how to manage their own land. But in recent years, between flash floods and wildfires, many Texans have become more acquainted with how nature may force them to adapt and how groups like TreeFolks can step in to help… Read more from Reporting Texas