DRC-sponsored workshops within the Devils River watershed are designed to build a common understanding around this shared resource among landowners and other advocates.

A series of riparian workshops in May/June 2014 kicked off DRC’s education program. These landowner/river owner workshops were led by experts in land stewardship and riparian management and follow the successful model developed by the Nueces River Authority. (see remarkableriparian.org)

According to the Houston Chronicle, “Travel on the river has increased tenfold from the few hundred paddlers a year who ventured down the Devils in the 1990s.” All those new visitors have an impact on the area’s fragile ecology, as well as on the rock paintings made by indigenous tribes who inhabited this area for thousands of years.

DRC works with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to educate visitors about the importance of minimizing their impact and leaving the Devils River basin as they found it. TPWD operates two State Natural Areas (SNA) on the Devils River and has limited and strict guidelines for river access.

Other than the two SNAs, the Devils River is bounded by private property and state laws apply to public access of the river while access to land is limited to the rules of gradient boundary, as defined by Texas courts. More on gradient boundary can be found here.