As environmentalists from around the world convened at the Aspen Ideas: Climate event in Chicago from July 20 to July 22, the conversation about conservation moved to Barrington Hills on July 20.
There, local and national conservationists toured the 44-acre Grigsby Prairie in Barrington Hills, managed by the volunteer group (CFC) Citizens for Conservation of Barrington.
CFC is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that restores and maintains more than 732 acres across 14 separate nearby locations, according to https://citizensforconservation.org.
“CFC first started with response to a lot of land development that was happening in the seventies, so they came to be in 1971,” said Abigail Derby Lewis of Glenview, CFC executive director.
Grigsby Prairie is “the oldest prairie restoration that CFC has and one of the oldest in the State of Illinois,” Derby Lewis said. “It is incredible.
“Every plant you see, every animal you see, all of the habitat there, that is the result of people putting in the time and the energy and the love to that land over decades,” Derby Lewis said.
CFC volunteer Wendy Paulson of Barrington Hills said of Grigsby Prairie (a prairie which was lost), “That’s an example of hope.”
The walk of the tallgrass prairie included tour leader and CFC board member Jim Vanderpoel of Arlington Heights, Dwayne Estes of Dickson, Tennessee, co-founder and executive director of the Southeastern Grasslands Institute (SGI) of Clarksville, Tennessee, and a professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.
SGI is building a movement,” according to https://www.segrasslands.org.
Also interpreting Grigsby Prairie on the tour were Derby Lewis, Paulson, plus author and renowned forest preserves site steward Stephen Packard of Northbrook.
Many experts identify prairie grasslands as the most threatened ecosystem in eastern North America, with scattered acres, islands and pockets around the United States unattended to and basically forgotten.
The purpose of the tour was to provide a personal experience of a successful prairie ecosystem restored by volunteers. Estes was in town for the Chicago summit and was delighted to return to his roots of Chicagoland inspiration.
Estes strives to identify prairie ecosystems lost to woody invasive buckthorn or to neglect and aggressive human-driven building and development on former prairie land.
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“People nationwide need more awareness,” Estes said. “We know a lot about forests and wetlands and oceans and rivers but grasslands don’t get the attention nationwide, so that’s one big objective.
“We need a map that shows where our grasslands were, and we actually just finished that map last week,” Estes said. “And it’s going to be unveiled as part of this national campaign process.
“I feel brokenhearted…there’s the nostalgia,” the botanist in Estes said about the mapped findings. “But I’m hopeful.
“I want us, as a community, to do (restore) millions of (prairie grassland) acres over the next 50 years and that’s what gives me the most hope,” Estes said.
Estes launched the Southeastern Grasslands Institute 10 years ago after seeing Cook and Lake County prairies with Stephen Packard and other preservationists, including the late Tom Vanderpoel of Barrington.
Thomas Waid Vanderpoel, 66, CFC director of land restoration, died on Aug. 8, 2017. Tom’s younger brother Jim Vanderpoel of Arlington Heights escorted the Grigsby Prairie tour that Monday afternoon, July 20.
“We realized, in Barrington, there’s almost no prairie left,” Jim Vanderpoel said. “I grew up in Illinois; they used to call it the prairie state, but when I started learning about plants, I realized, there’s no prairie.”
For Estes, looking back on a Northbrook guided tour of restored prairie grasslands, “My experience, coming here, seeing it through Steve Packard’s eyes…and several others, revealed to me that Chicago had this 40-year model of rebuilding prairies and savannas and open woodlands.
“What I realized is that outside of the greater Chicago area, no one else across the country was doing it with this community-driven approach,” Estes added.
With Packard, Estes experienced Somme Prairie Grove and Northbrook savanna preserves by pushing through a path of invasive buckthorn (woody plant targeted for removal), “and we entered into what I can only describe as the proverbial Garden of Eden.
“And as I am walking into this scene, there’s flowers, like, everywhere,” Estes said.
Packard, site steward at Somme Prairie Grove, participated on Saturday, July 18 in a Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves early evening scything event at Somme Prairie Nature Preserve, also in Northbrook on Dundee Road.
Two days later, Packard said before the Grigsby Prairie tour during a lunch-and-learn session in Barrington at CFC headquarters, “There’s a sense on the planet that things are going wrong and if somebody can do something with their hands and see real change, it inspires people, so the best way for the biodiversity of a community to survive is if it’s healthy.”
Learn more about Aspen Ideas: Climate, presented by the Aspen Institute in partnership with the Chicago Climate Corps at https://www.aspenideas.org/attend/climate.
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Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.