50 Years Ago, This Was a Wasteland. He Changed Everything | Short Film Showcase
[Music] 50 years ago, you couldn't hardly walk through this place. It was wall to wall. [Music] Brush! There wasn't any grass, there wasn't any water. Nobody wanted. [Applause]
It on the truck, on the truck! He's the finest dog in the United States of America. Yeah, in Texas too!
Well, I was born, uh, in Ohio, born into poverty, to be honest about it. We lived out in the country amongst the Amish people. So I really got my life example set for me by my own mother. That's where my love of the natural world came from. I've never inherited a nickel; I inherited a love of the natural world and a respect, a respect for it.
When I got out of the University, I took a job; I sold vacuum cleaners door to door. I went into the fast food business. I've teamed up with a young man, Bill Church, and it was Church's Fried Chicken. We built that company up to over 1,600 stores, and we sold it. With that capital, I was able to come here and begin my work on Sila Bamberger Ranch Preserve.
My objective was to take the worst piece of land I could possibly find in the Hill Country of Texas and began a process of restoration that would change it back to be one of the best, and that has happened right here by habitat restoration, by working with Mother Nature instead of against her. And that's what we're all about.
46 years ago, about a drop of water, seven water wells were drilled 500 ft deep. Not a one produced any water. The top 125 ft of these hills looks like this said toward Limestone. When the driller drilled all those wells for me, he said, "Bamberger, one place up here on the top, my bit dropped 40 ft. He said you got a cavern under there! It's like an auditorium." The only thing about it was, 46 years ago, it had no water in it. It was dry! It was dry because the water that was coming in was running off as opposed to sinking in.
When I came here, all of the little holes and all of that limestone were just as dry as the one I'm holding in my hand now. What happened? We replaced that condition with this condition. Two and a half years after we began, the first spring came to life. As we continued on, another spring showed up. We got up to where we had 11. Where did water come from? It came out of all of those holes in that perched aquifer like that. That's where it came from. It was stored in the earth in all because of one thing, just one.
And I'm telling you, I'm going to show you the greatest conservation tool ever made, and everything I talk about could not have happened without grass. The Hill Country is just covered with woody species, primarily it's, uh, cedar. We took out a great portion of it here on the ranch; we were just covered with it. We had no grass. When we took out the cedar and spread native grass seeds, it began to grow. Rainfall then percolated into the earth because of the root system of grass going down.
Water percolates and it fills up your aquifer until the aquifer is full, and when it's full, it has to come out somewhere, and they call that a spring. That spring supplied water for all the Nature's critters, plus for all the families that live here, and even sends water downstream to the City of Austin.
What does it cost our governments? Governments all around the world are spending millions and millions of dollars doing all kinds of things—dams and reservoirs and pipelines—and all of this can be done by you and I. We don't have to have government; we can't expect government to do it all anyway. But if we do have some conservation ethics, the results are mind-boggling.
Now, do we see that kind of erosion here? I'm telling you truthfully, I've seen this property, and the experiences that people have here change lives.
What does "CA" mean? Oh, beautiful! Thank you so much! What does "Sila" mean? When I was younger and I discovered in the PMS the word "Sila," it means to stop, to pause, to look around you, and reflect on everything you [Music] see.
To me, it's like Thoreau was to Walden Pond; it gives us a chance to say, "What's my duty as a steward of this ranch land?" And I believe it's to take care of it and to share it. If you don't share what you have, you're going to live a lonely [Music] life.
That is a necessary ingredient for every human being, that we need to catch up and live amongst Mother Nature, and learn to appreciate her for what she really is. I've given this land to a foundation; it'll go on in perpetuity. It'll never be any different than you see it [Music] today. When I leave this world, that's what I want as part of my legacy. [Music] [Music] [Music]