an outline for a book or video
Episode 1. The
Earth forms. Moving continents, life and mass extinctions, botanical marvels,
and the tenderness of animal mothers. Gradually our story focuses on what will
become a special place. 12,000 years ago, by the side of Glacial Lake Chicago,
wooly mammoths, musk oxen, and saber-tooth cats pursue their frosty-breathed
and unruly lives. But the planet warms, the musk oxen move north, and
Jefferson’s mammoths, long-horned bison, and other prairie creatures re-invade
from the southeast and southwest. Grasslands and oak woodlands form, as they
have, moving around the continent in response to climate, for 5M years. But these
lands are about to incorporate unexpected newcomers.
Episode 2. Native
American humans arrive from Asia. As they do, the mammoth, mastodon,
long-horned bison, short-faced bear, camel, and giant ground sloth vanish into
the mist. Now from Asia also come: grizzly bear, elk, and wolves. Though the
prairies and woods have burned for millions of years, ignition by lightning is now
largely replaced by purposeful burning (to manage plants for medicine and food,
to hunt, for protection, and for war). Much of the time, people find life is
good. This ecologically richest landscape of the temperate world is a mosaic of
woodlands, prairies, wetlands, orchids, passenger pigeons, Carolina parakeets,
and white-tailed deer.
Episode 3.
Europeans invade across the Atlantic, bringing disease that kills 90% of the
native people. Reduced hunting and consumption for a while makes space for invasion by the plains bison (never before part of our tallgrass prairie). As
Europeans grab land, tribes fight tribes for what's left, the mighty Illiniwek (with their
towns of wooden houses) fall to more flexible (and fierce) hunter-gatherers. The
tenderness of human mothers sometimes clashes with the harshness of fathers.
Some visionary people (Tecumseh, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Addams) imagine better
worlds.
Episode 4. As the
last Sac, Fox, and Potawatomi retreat north and west, European Americans
develop a family farm economy over nearly every acre of the former tallgrass
prairie, oak savanna, and woodland. On the edge of the cold lake, a metropolis
emerges through commerce in the nature – exhausting first wildlife, then trees,
even gradually depleting the rich soil itself. Yet for many new citizens, refugees
from stress and misery, life gradually improved.
Episode 5. Jens
Jensen, fleeing European wars (and authority), has a vision worthy of the “New
World.” The Committee on the Universe (Dwight Perkins, Jane Addams, Frank Lloyd
Wright, and others) think up new elements of culture, including the idea of
saving natural landscapes and playgrounds as a part of nature’s metropolis.
Friends of the Native Landscape and the Prairie Club form to campaign for the
new vision. 15 years of legal and social battles lead finally to victory as the
world’s first metropolitan Forest Preserve is born. Its charter:
“ … to acquire and hold land for the
purpose of protecting and preserving the flora, fauna, and scenic beauties
within such district and to restore and restock, protect and preserve the
natural forests and such lands together with their flora and fauna as nearly as
may be, in their natural state and condition, for the purpose of the education,
pleasure and recreation of the public.”
Episode 6. People
search for the most rich and beautiful land, and the Forest Preserve District
buys it. People work to maintain nature traditions from the Native Americans,
European American farmers, and the customs of immigrants. Preserve managers
plant trees, mow scenic meadows, hold festivals. Cap Sauers rescues the
institution from corruption and makes peace with the politicians. He helps
George Fell found the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission. The District
dedicates 11 of the state’s first twelve nature preserves including Shoe
Factory Road Prairie, Busse Woods, Cranberry Slough, and the compellingly named
Thornton-Lansing Road Nature Preserve (a complex of savanna, prairie, wetland,
and woodland).
Episode 7. Henry
Cowles of the University of Chicago, studying Lake Michigan dunes, develops the
concept of the ecosystem. Roberts Mann (FPD staff leader) and Aldo Leopold
(University of Wisconsin) teach, write papers, and exchange correspondence
about what forest preserves can be. “Mushroom Fests” appeal to middle-European foragers.
Performances, pageants, dances, and picnics draw millions of people to the
preserves (on their one day off each week). The FPD explores restoration of
deer, turkeys, and prairie chickens. May Theilgaard Watts writes “Reading the
Landscape” to engage people with local prairies, ravines, bogs, and nature
generally. Learning that the ‘Chicago vision’ is lacking elsewhere, she then
writes “Reading the Landscape of America” and later “… of Europe.” But
imperceptibly, much of what’s appreciated in the forest preserves is slipping
away.
Episode 8. Leopold
and other University of Wisconsin biologists invent prairie restoration – the
world’s first ‘ecosystem medicine.’ Dr. Robert Betz a biochemist at
Northeastern Illinois University in his free time wages a personal campaign to
discover, preserve, and restore the region’s remnant prairies. Betz, Ray
Schulenburg (Morton Arboretum) and Dot and Doug Wade (NIU) educate scores of
activist volunteers who hold conferences and look for prairie conservation
opportunities. George Fell, founder of The Nature Conservancy (not-for-profit)
and Illinois Nature Preserves Commission (government), help launch another planetary
first, the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory, which searches the entire state
and finds 610 surviving “natural areas” – pitifully representing only 7/100th
of 1% of the state.
Episode 9.
Inspired by Betz and Fell, a group of volunteers wins approval to restore
vanishing prairies on public land. The North Branch Restoration Project engages
scores of neighbors in the mission (with the spirit of ‘the sixties’ and
emerging environmentalism). Rare and endangered plants and animals respond with
drama and beauty. Betz spurs them on, saying that “people like you and me need
to act on the ideas that the ‘properly educated’ academics can’t have.” “Unproven”
ideas start to save what’s been vanishing so fast. After a mere decade of hard
work and stunning successes, the group is widely celebrated as the first community
for ecosystem restoration on public conservation land. First acres, then tens
of acres, then hundreds recover biodiversity.
Episode 10. The
drama proceeds with many reversals. George Fell and his entire staff are fired
by Illinois. Too non-compromising. With nowhere else to turn, the Illinois
Nature Preserves Commission reluctantly approves a volunteer program modeled
after the North Branch Prairie Project for the state’s nature preserves. The
Nature Conservancy hires the former INPC field staff and develops the Volunteer
Stewardship Network into a national and international model. Power grows, and
with it, foes. Fifteen years into the ‘experiment’ the press and many public
officials turn on the program, and the Conservancy pulls out – but that drama
will mostly have to wait until Episode 12.
Episode 11. While
restoration for prairies is increasingly expert, the region’s oak savannas and
woodlands continue to degrade as the prairies once did. To get approval to burn
the forests means fighting decades of misleading education. A rough consensus
slowly emerges that forests and wetlands too desperately need restoration to
cope with modern stresses if their species are to survive. Trained expert
volunteers cut great swaths of invasive brush and provide much needed
controlled burns to more than 100 prairies, woodlands, and wetlands in the greater
Chicago region. Conservation agencies begin hiring restoration staff. Some
volunteers launch entrepreneurial companies to satisfy increasing demand for
‘ecosystem medics.’
Episode 12. The
new conservation community (paid and volunteer stewards) becomes increasingly
numerous, sophisticated, and respected. But the traditional supporters of
forest preserves have faded. Preserve land is appropriated by politicians for
garbage dumps, a sports stadium, and, if a powerful pol has his way, a
neon-lighted gambling casino. Most stewards had tried to stay out of politics,
but the casino was too much. Recognizing the need for broader public support
and to engage the region’s powerful cultural and scientific institutions, the
Nature Conservancy launches “Chicago Wilderness” – a campaign to gain resources
and recognition (with tens, then hundreds of organizational partners). Just as
Chicago Wilderness is launched, a ferocious media campaign attacks the
Conservancy, many individual stewards, and Forest Preserve conservation staff.
DuPage, Lake, and Cook Counties take the most heat. Cook FPD President John
Stroger declares a “moratorium” that ends all forms or restoration (and even
litter clean-up and kids educational activities) at the District’s natural
areas. A similar moratorium in DuPage County lasts for months, but in Cook it
drags on for years because of obscure politics.
Episode 13. Hoping for an organizational home with reputation for both good conservation science and
committed advocacy, steward seek support less from the Nature Conservancy
and more from the National Audubon Society. Soon Audubon is hiring the interns, sponsoring
the educational conferences, and recruiting the new volunteer groups. For some years, Audubon houses Chicago Wilderness
Magazine and the new Friends of the Forest Preserves. Building support from the
ground up, stewards gradually resume their ‘controversial’ work: cutting trees,
culling deer (professionals only), applying herbicide (as regulated by a special Illinois program), and controlled burns. The new projects span
thousands of acres.
Episode 14. This
episode predicts the next few decades in Chicago Wilderness. The Cook County
Forest Preserves board and Great Foundations decide to fund the Next Century
Plan (approved in 2014): 30,000 acres to be restored to high quality, millions
of people engaged in nature, 400 volunteer stewards empowered, and much more.
Not that we can truly predict even a few years ahead – but we start thinking generations
ahead. We are humans; we can do it. Just as people have developed passionate
interest in dancing – sports – cars – gardening: so now in their free time citizen-scientist
stewards work closely (and distantly) with professionals to develop dramatic
advances in sustainable living, solutions to pollution, climate change, and
other as-yet-unexpected challenges. Chicago becomes a “Silicon Valley” for
ecosystem restoration on larger and larger scales.
Episode 15. “Natural
disasters” in the year 2050 force humanity finally to face the fact that it has
just two choices: One – take planetary health seriously and devote a level of resources
formerly devoted only to war. Or two – accept that most life on the planet including
us will soon spiral out of existence. You’ll be glad to know that, with
ferocious commitment, creativity, and a bit of good luck, the planet is rescued.
We thank ecosystem medicine that started with “A Land Ethic” and “to restore,
restock, preserve and protect.” Because there was never enough money to do the
quirky science that leads to fundamental breakthroughs, “classic unfunded
science pioneers” make some of the key discoveries. Yes, true, the professional
scientists, government workers, and entrepreneurs contribute much – partly
because of increased demand and resources (ultimately coming from the community
of stewards and earth-lovers). The Chicago conservationists play a major role
in saving the planet because of politics/community/resources and inspired
individuals among the professionals, citizen scientists, and artists who pull
it all together.
