AUSTIN – Texans can help the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department keep the state’s rivers healthy and flowing through their purchase of the new Texas Rivers conservation license plate, available now at www.ConservationPlate.org/Rivers.

“The new plate design features a Texas river cascading over boulders and past cypress trees while gently carrying a kayaker downstream past a fly fisherman casting into a yellow sunset,” said Janis Johnson, the Conservation License Plate program manager at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “We expect this plate will appeal to a broad group of people, including swimmers, tubers, anglers, canoers and kayakers, water conservationists and all of the people who love and appreciate Texas rivers.”

The Texas Rivers plate sells for $30, with $22 going directly to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to help conserve Texas rivers. This revenue will help fund the Department’s “Conserving Texas Rivers Initiative,” a public-private partnership that helps build and sustain capacity among local landowners, communities, and non-governmental organizations to conserve their hometown rivers. Since 2010, the initiative has helped restore more than ten thousand acres of springs, creeks, and streamside habitats for fish and wildlife. It has also helped restore Guadalupe Bass, the official state fish, in rivers of the Hill Country.

Plate revenues will also help expand opportunities for nature-oriented recreation on Texas rivers through the Department’s River Access and Conservation Areas Program. Since 2012, the program has established 19 public river access areas on 10 rivers. These access areas provide opportunities for bank, wade and kayak/canoe fishing, wildlife viewing and other forms of nature-oriented recreation on more than 150 miles of Texas rivers. To learn more about these programs and how revenues from sales of the Texas Rivers conservation license plate will be used, please visit:  http://www.conservationplate.org/projects.phtml.

“Texas rivers are treasured and indispensable resources that sustain us all, and the image on this new Texas Rivers conservation license plate illustrates the values associated with healthy, flowing rivers,” said Tim Birdsong, Chief of Habitat Conservation for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Inland Fisheries Division. “Our hope is that this new plate will help connect and unite those with a shared passion for conserving Texas’ scenic, wild, and storied rivers for current and future generations.”

The Texas Rivers plate is one of eight specialty plates that support the Department’s mission. Others include the horned lizard, rattlesnake and hummingbird plates benefiting wildlife diversity; the white-tailed deer plate benefiting big game management; the large-mouth bass plate benefiting bass fishing; and the camping and bluebonnet plates benefiting state parks.

To buy the new Texas Rivers conservation license plate or one of the other seven designs available, visit www.conservationplate.org or your local county tax assessor-collector’s office. You do not have to wait until you receive your renewal notice, you can order at any time and the cost will be pro-rated. All conservation plates are available for cars, trucks, motorcycles, trailers and RVs.