The management program at Sandyland is designed to protect and sustain the species, communities and natural processes of the preserve. Extensive biological surveys have been completed for vascular plants and various vertebrates in the preserve. Baseline inventories are continuing on insects, butterflies and moths, bats and freshwater mussels. These surveys are inval-uable measures of diversity and abundance of species. They serve as a future reference point for monitoring the health of the ecoysystems found on the preserve.
Fire plays a major role in maintaining the biodiversity of the preserve.
The Conservancy is continuing a fire management program initiated in 1978 to restore and enhance longleaf pine savannahs, which historically were maintained by lightning-caused wildfires. These controlled burns reduce competition from hardwood shrubs, clear germination sites for longleaf pine seedlings, return nutrients to the soil and provide an open environment that many flowering plants, forbs and grasses benefit from. Herbaceous species that benefit from prescribed fire include several that are considered endangered, threatened or rare in the West Gulf Coastal Plain, including Texas trailing phlox, white firewheel, Louisiana bluestar and scarlet catchfly. Selective harvesting is being used to remove slash pine, a non-native species in Texas. Under the right environmental conditions, prescribed burning assists in the removal of unde-sired slash pine seedlings and young saplings.