Our Initiatives

The Chicago Wilderness alliance is a regional alliance that connects people and nature. Our more than 250 diverse member organizations work together to restore local nature and improve the quality of life for all living things by protecting the lands and waters on which we all depend.

The work of Chicago Wilderness members is focused on four broad, long-term initiatives:

• Climate Change
• Green Infrastructure Vision: Bringing Nature to People
• Leave No Child Inside
• Restoring the Health of Local Nature

Climate Change

Climate change truly presents an opportunity to think globally and act locally. While there are many studies showing the worldwide impact of climate change, its effect on the biodiversity of specific regions is yet unknown. Thus, on June 25, 2010, the Chicago Wilderness alliance released its Climate Action Plan for Nature, the first to address issues of biodiversity conservation and climate change in the greater Chicago region. The plan was developed with the leadership of The Nature Conservancy in Illinois and a number of partners within the alliance. It identifies actions related to mitigation, adaptation and increased public awareness as key strategies in fighting climate change, and addresses the significant role of, and threats to, natural area conservation in the face of this phenomenon.

To the future impacts of climate change, the plan’s three main strategies are to:

1. Advance climate research and recognition of the importance of land conservation in fighting climate change;
2. Promote conservation practices that help local nature adapt to anticipated climate change impacts; and
3. Marshal the collective expertise of Chicago Wilderness members to create local solutions that have global impact.

“The Climate Action Plan for Nature uses a regional approach that integrates people and nature,” says Melinda Pruett-Jones, Executive Director of Chicago Wilderness. “It enables us to think about how we care for nature in the face of climate change which, in turn, will enable nature to continue to care for us.”

The plan complements other plans developed for the region that focus on the relationship of human activities and climate change. Click here to download a summary of the Climate Action Plan for Nature.

Green Infrastructure Vision: Bringing Nature to People

Nearly a century ago, Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett unveiled their 1909 Plan of Chicago, a framework for growth in the greater Chicago area. Often called the Burnham Plan, their vision included a network of forest preserve districts, open spaces and trails that have become a legacy unique to this region. Now, almost 100 years later, members and partners of Chicago Wilderness are building on that legacy to bring nature to people and make this region an even more exceptional place to live and work.

The Chicago Wilderness Green Infrastructure Vision (GIV) paints a bold picture of what our region can look like if we are careful to protect the natural areas, corridors, and open spaces that are critical to our quality of life. The nearly 370,000 acres of natural areas that make up Chicago’s Wilderness comprise our “green infrastructure,” and are as critical to the people in this region as our built environment and transportation systems. The GIV identifies 1.8 million acres of prospective protection and restoration areas in the Chicago Wilderness region — spanning from southeast Wisconsin, through northeast Illinois into northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan. Yet the Vision is not merely a land acquisition strategy, but rather a call to carefully think about how we can live in and among natural areas in a sustainable way and to mutual benefit, by using tools such as conservation development, conservation easements, and thoughtful land use planning. It is a guide to creating a region where healthy ecosystems contribute to economic vitality and a high quality of life for all residents.

Beginning in 2009, Chicago Wilderness members will begin a coordinated effort to implement the Vision at four scales:

• Regional, by working with regional planning agencies to redefine how we think about sustainability and community health by incorporating conservation development principles and natural resource preservation into land use and transportation plans.
• Community, by incorporating principles of biodiversity conservation, sustainability, and people-friendly design into land use plans and ordinances.
• Neighborhood, by promoting the preservation of natural spaces, conservation design and access to nature into developing communities, and
• Site, by promoting native landscaping, the use of rain gardens and rain barrels, and through the greening of schoolyards and other community open spaces.

The Green Infrastructure Vision is the blueprint for a region in which nature is accessible to all residents, and the built environment reflects our commitment Download the Final Report and maps of protection areas in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and all three states combined.

The Ecological Planning and Design Directory: Resources for Developers, Local Officials and Stakeholders

The Ecological Planning and Design Directory is a wealth of tools and techniques for achieving sustainable development that is both environmentally sensitive and cost-effective. The Directory presents a set of best practices that individuals, businesses, governments, and other organizations can implement to the benefit of their communities.

Resources are presented in the following topic areas:

• Biodiversity and Natural Habitats
• Conservation Design
• Sustainable Development
• Natural Landscaping
• Water Resource Protection

Leave No Child Inside

Kids today build internet sites instead of constructing forts in the woods. Music piped into earphones has replaced listening for the sounds of bird calls and frog croaks. Cell phones and e-mails are more efficient than two cups on a string or flashlight signals. Childhood has changed.

A growing body of research is telling us that time spent outdoors in nature is critical to children’s physical, social and emotional development. Research also shows that while time spent outside with parents, teachers or other adults is valuable, it is also important that children be encouraged to play on their own, to explore and simply be in nature. This unstructured time fosters creativity, emotional well-being, independent learning and problem solving; it lets kids connect with the place in which they live and the larger environment on which we all depend.

Chicago Wilderness members share a common dream: that the children of this region will grow up with a strong connection to nature, and, as a result, are healthier and motivated to become its caring stewards. The Chicago Wilderness Leave No Child Inside initiative is helping to foster that connection by raising public awareness about the importance of access to nature for healthy childhood development, and by welcoming families to explore our member organizations’ wondrous places and programs, such as camping, service learning projects, and programs for schoolchildren like Mighty Acorns, which combines a science curriculum with exploration of local nature and hands-on stewardship of public lands.

In 2009 Chicago Wilderness members will expand these programs to make them available to more children and families across the region.

For more information on the Leave No Child Inside initiative, and ideas for how to connect your children to nature, visit www.kidsoutside.info.

Restoring the Health of Local Nature

Nature offers us many benefits: outdoor recreation, opportunities for learning and discovery, spiritual renewal. Healthy ecosystems also provide us with clean air and water, filter pollution and help control flooding, and provide habitat for native wildlife. As residents of the Chicago Wilderness region, we are fortunate to have access to a large amount of open space and natural areas that have been conserved as part of the growing metropolitan region.

But the lands, waters and wildlife that provide us with so much need our help as well. In an urban environment, natural areas become fragmented and disconnected, causing natural processes to break down. Active restoration and land management are needed to maintain the health of those natural areas for the people, plants and animals that depend on them.

Unfortunately, much of our local nature is not in good health. In 2006, Chicago Wilderness released a report card on local nature that assigned grades of C and D to our wetlands, woodlands, prairies and rivers, with only a scattering of sites that, with attention and care, have been restored to grade ‘A’ health.

To return local nature to a healthy condition, Chicago Wilderness members are actively managing the region’s habitats through controlled burning, removal of invasive species, deer control, seeding of native plant species, and by engaging area residents as volunteer stewards of the landscape. Progress is measured through careful monitoring of plant and animal species by natural resource management professionals as well as citizen scientists — trained volunteers who help gather data on species that in turn helps inform resource management decisions.

To ensure continued progress, Chicago Wilderness members have identified the need for a system of indicators of health that can be used to measure progress over time across the entire region, and to inform the decisions natural resource managers make in caring for specific sites. The development of such a system will be a future focus for Chicago Wilderness which, because of the diversity and breadth of its membership, is in a unique position to lead such a region-wide initiative.

It will take many resources to re-establish and sustain the health of the region’s natural spaces, but the organizations working collaboratively in Chicago Wilderness — and the individuals that support them — are up to the challenge.