The natural environment of the Lower Rio Grande Valley has largely been lost due to fifty years of intensive agricultural and urban development. What’s left has been fragmented into small, unconnected patches of forest — so much so, that many people here have forgotten that they live in one of the most biologically rich environments in the country. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and local landowners are working together to reconnect these patches of forest to one another, and to the local people who live near them.

We encourage you to visit some of the amazing wild areas in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and to support conservation efforts in the region, as well as in your own backyard.

Created by Joris van Alphen, Mariana Baez-Ponce, Hernandez Herrerias Leon Bartolome, Abe Borker, Nathaniel Child, Nate Dappen, Abbygale Gazica, Thor Morales, Kari Post, Aaron Schmidt, Connor Stefanison, Stephanie Walden, and David Wong.

Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Texas, United States.

About the Project

We created this short film in five days during the Nature Photography Summit. We shot it in a 36 hour period and spent the following nights puting it together on top of the summit program. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided supplementary images of ocelots, and the U.S. Geological Survey provided satellite imagery for the project. All other footage and photographs were taken by us.

As over three quarters of the local population is Latino, we’re also producing a version with completely Spanish narration. This will come out next week, so stay tuned if you’re interested.

The Future

I’m really pleased with what we were able to put together in such a short time. Getting to work on the project together with this group of talented, young photographers, as well as meeting photographers like Michele Westmorland, Rob Sheppard, Jack Dykinga, Daniel Beltrá, and Patricio Robles Gil, has been incredibly inspiring. I’m very excited about getting more involved with conservation photography in the future.

Please let me know what you think about our project. If you enjoyed the film it would mean a lot to me if you could share it with others.