Recent Accomplishments: Collaborative Conservation Action Across a Metropolitan Landscape

Chicago Wilderness’ unique role in the metropolitan region is to convene business, government and nonprofit stakeholders around the region-wide challenges facing our natural environment. Chicago Wilderness has become a hub for urban conservation and is considered a model to replicate.

Since 1996, Chicago Wilderness has leveraged more than $13 million in federal funding and more than $1 million in Corporate Council funding to implement more than 500 collaborative projects to protect, restore and manage the rich natural heritage of the Chicago region. We are making a significant conservation impact in the region, a true testament to the work of our unique alliance and its partners. These smart partnerships, approaches and practices have lead to some incredible recent regional success stories and accolades.

Our collaborative initiatives bring national attention to our region as the hub of urban conservation in the U.S.  Consider these tremendous accomplishments in 2012:

• Chicago Wilderness members were critical in the August 2012 authorization of the Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge in southeasternWisconsin and northeasternIllinois. Hackmatack will be the first officially-designated wildlife refuge in our region and will connect the 12 million residents of the metropolitan areas ofChicago,Madison,Milwaukee andRockford to nature.
• The Chicago Wilderness region now hosts four collaborative, landscape-scale projects in the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. This national initiative reconnects Americans, especially children, to our rich natural heritage.  Our local projects include a Treasured Landscape (Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie), an Urban Waters Partnership inNorthwest Indiana, the Millennium Reserve: Calumet Core project, and the newly-authorized Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge.
• Chicago Wilderness now chairs a national network of urban conservation coalitions called the Metropolitan Greenspaces Alliances. This group is working to promote collaborative approaches, sharing knowledge and best practices across major metropolitan areas. Together, MGA members include more than 550 private, nonprofit, and public organizations from sevenU.S. metropolitan regions, which together are home to more than 30 million people.

While bringing national attention and resources to our region, our members are making a difference right here at home:

• The Chicago Wilderness Sustainable Watershed Action Team (SWAT) is providing sustainable land-use planning assistance across the metropolitan area at the local, community and regional levels. This year, SWAT’s green infrastructure plan for McHenry County won the 2012 Best Strategic Plan award from theIllinois chapter of the American Planning Association.  The plan will connect and build on the county’s natural areas and trails, providing more recreational opportunities for people and migratory routes for wildlife, while preserving the natural systems that provide clean drinking water and stormwater management for the more than 300,000 residents who live in the county.
• Chicago Wilderness members are now about to launch an ambitious initiative to help communities develop climate action programs that address climate change and local concerns at the same time, through water and energy conservation programs, by creating community gardens and green space, and by fostering culturally-relevant approaches to environmental issues.
• In June over 70 partner organizations engaged more than 15,000 people in Leave No Child Inside Month programs. Kids went fishing, made mud pies, climbed trees, explored wetlands and woodlands, and took a long, deep breath in nature for a change.
• In 2012, nearly 200 people, including a number of high school and scout groups, participated at 13 sites across the region in the Chicago Wilderness Corporate Council Day of Service, an annual event that promotes stewardship of the region’s natural resources.
• More than 650 professionals, volunteers, students, business leaders and foundation representatives attended the November 2012 Congress; one of our most successful such events to date. Congress again demonstrated that this biennial forum is the foremost venue for professionals and others to come together to identify opportunities for collaboration, build new partnerships, and make connections to secure a thriving and healthy Chicago Wilderness for both people and nature.

These are not the accomplishments of a single organization, but rather of a diverse alliance that includes nonprofits, businesses, cultural institutions, volunteer groups, community leaders and individuals like you who want to make a difference in our region today, and for generations to come.
To continue this vital work, we need your help. Donate now to make a contribution to Chicago Wilderness.