Originally ran August 25, 2007

Land adjacent to Big Bend is on the State of Texas' auction block, and the sale is being opposed by the conservation groups that donated it to the state in the first place.

In 1991, the state accepted a gift from the Conservation Fund of 9,269 acres in the Christmas Mountains, on the northwestern border of Big Bend National Park.

This week, the General Land Office closed bidding on the sale of the land, including significant restrictions. It could fetch upward of $50 an acre.

The office received six bids and is scheduled to announce a winner in mid-September , but this month the fund sent the land office a letter saying that it is "opposed to a sale to a private user."

The deed with which the land was donated to the state holds that the land office can sell the property only after offering it to the state Parks and Wildlife Department and to the National Park Service, and only if the fund approves the sale.

"It was the hope... that this land would be made available to the general public for hunting and other recreational uses," Richard Erdman , executive vice president of the Virginia-based Conservation Fund, wrote in the Aug. 8 letter.

Mike Watson, an officer with the Richard King Mellon Foundation, which paid for the land and donated it to Texas through the fund, put it more bluntly in an e-mail at the end of July to several people involved in conservation in Texas: If the land sale goes through "the state of Texas (should) not look to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for any future help."

The Pennsylvania-based foundation is a major player in land conservation donations, setting aside open space in all 50 states. The foundation, along with the fund, gave around 40,000 acres in the Chinati Mountains to state parks and wildlife.

The land office says that it cannot manage the land and it had asked the state and federal parks agencies, which have seen their funding stretched thin, to take control of it. Both declined.

"The problem we have is we're not in the park business," Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said. Proceeds from the sale would go to the Permanent School Fund and public education, he said.

Patterson said he thinks the provision of the deed requiring approval for a sale is essentially unenforceable; the current owner of the property should not have to ask the previous owner for permission to sell it.

The fund and the foundation "say it's sending the wrong signal," Patterson said. "It may be a bias that only government can be good stewards of land. And that's simply not true."

Trespassing and poaching have already taken place on the land, and invasive species have taken root, Patterson said.

The land is gorgeous, said Terry Ervin , a property owner whose land abuts the Christmas Mountains land.

"Say some rich gentleman wanted his own hunting reserve in West Texas, it would make a great little hobby," Ervin said.

The land has three windmills that no longer work, relics from the property's ranching days; roads, many of which are impassable; and an artificial, seasonal lake, Ervin said.

The Christmas Mountains top out at about 5,700 feet above sea level, according to the Handbook of Texas, and the area's shallow soils support oak, juniper, mesquite, chaparral, cacti and scrub brush.

The fund points to 1991 letters from then-Land Commissioner Garry Mauro that said the "property is indeed a resource worth preserving for future generations."

"I have serious reservations about moving priceless unique land out of the state's portfolio," Mauro said in an interview Friday.

"But if in fact we have solid conservation easements in place and an aggressive management plan in place, I think there's a good argument to be made that putting this land into the private sector with those kinds of constraints and those immediate goals would be an overall positive for the unique lands in Texas."

Under the restrictions, the land office retains water and mineral resources under the land. Off-road vehicles and utility lines are banned, as is the grazing of livestock. The buyer can build only a bare-bones lodge.

"The restrictions are so significant, that fundamentally, all you can do is look at the land," said John Poindexter, who runs Cibolo Creek Ranch Resort and who bid on the property.

Poindexter failed in 2005 to buy a parcel of Big Bend Ranch State Park.

"It's handsome scenery, and it's a good conservation project."

The Conservation Fund and the Richard King Mellon Foundation declined to comment.

Conservation experts say the sale points to some of the complexities of donating land.

"If I wanted to conserve my land, I would want to give it to Parks and Wildlife," said Carolyn Vogel , executive director of the nonprofit Texas Land Trust Council.

"If the foundation intended for conservation to be the major outcome and it got developed instead, it could have an effect" on future donations to the state, Vogel said.