Professionals and Volunteers: a Declaration of Interdependence

Originally written in 2014

Updated in 2026

One score and seventeen years ago, in 1977 actually, forest preserve staff and volunteers launched an experiment in “participatory democracy.” Its energy fueled the rise of steward communities, the hiring of professional land managers, and resulted in tens of thousands of acres of rich, restored habitats and their biodiversity.

Along the way, when the Illinois Nature Preserve Commission lost funding and its entire staff in a 1982 political debacle, the dedication and growing expertise of the volunteers was recognized, and in 1983 the Commission joined with The Nature Conservancy to launch the Volunteer Stewardship Network to care for Nature Preserves. 

Hand pollenating an orchid on the federal endangered list: Daniel Suarez (right) started as a volunteer, learned from volunteers, and became a professional. Lisa Musgrave (left) has long been a lead volunteer. Staff people often change jobs. Volunteers can be crucial to continuity. 

What makes for the most productive relationship between professionals and volunteers? From the beginning of the rise of volunteer stewards in 1977, some staff admired and empowered them. But some bureaucrats reacted with territoriality and aggression.  

A "Land Audit" designed and conducted by 80 volunteers and professionals (acting as volunteers) inspired the Cook County Forest Preserve board to upgrade its ecological management staff and program - dramatically. Planning team, all acting as volunteers here, from left, Julie Mason (Will County FP), Wayne Lampa (former head ecologist of DuPage), Joe Neumann (Palos volunteer  steward), Jean Sellar (Army Corps), Barbara Hill (Poplar Creek, volunteer steward, advocate), and Linda Masters (Somme volunteer and pro with Openlands). The study was released by Friends of the Forest Preserves (at the time an entirely volunteer organization).  

Among the volunteers too, there has been a divide. The principal volunteer leaders have always had a “we can work with you” approach. But others saw protest and criticism as a basic environmentalist tool.

Both the Forest Preserves and the Nature Preserves were born as something different from regular government. They depended on a long vision and supportive public. Currently there are steadily increasing numbers of staff and hundreds of core volunteers, most of whom support each other. 

The Illinois Nature Preserves System was founded as an institution that depended utterly on multiple collaborations. Surviving natural areas were small and fast being lost. The challenge was so great and so urgent that no one organization could do all it takes. By 2025, its 634 Preserves covered 126,760 acres and were owned by 297 distinct agencies and individuals, many of which had no ecosystem management staff. 

For political support and on-the-ground work, the conservation community has been crucial. Who are we? 

PROFESSIONALS

• Restoration staffs of many forest preserves, Illinois state conservation agencies, and other partner government agencies
• Not-for-profit organization staff focused on biodiversity conservation. Such positions have arisen only since the 70s, but these jobs now number in the scores at such organizations as Audubon, Friends groups, museums, zoos, botanic gardens, etc. 
• Elected officials
• Entrepreneurs who work by contract. (The field of restoration contractors didn’t exist in 1977. Now many companies benefit from annual multi-million dollar restoration budgets in the Chicago region alone.)
• Associated academics, writers, artists, and teachers

VOLUNTEERS

• Stewards at hundreds of sites - with a few to scores of stewards each
• Monitors (hundreds more who take “citizen science” data in various programs and directly for the use of the stewards)
•  Advocates
•  Education and outreach volunteers

How's this community doing? It's had ups and downs. Although the vast bulk of the leadership and work comes from the volunteers ourselves, staff have played key roles. This whole approach would never have gotten off the ground if Cook County Forest Preserve officials hadn't recognized the need and courageously trusted the volunteer leaders and advisors who offered to help. Some of these same leaders were later hired by the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission and The Nature Conservancy to promote and nurture the volunteer community. These staff people were sometimes crucial in passing along the vision and organizing new communities. 

Some public agencies have tried to turn the volunteer program into a regular part of the bureaucracy and, in the process, largely disfranchised and lost many of their land's most effective stewards – and with them the constituencies that have been a critical part of the equation.

For these relationships to succeed, not everyone has to “understand” or “pay attention” to all the parts. But enough people need to be fostering collaboration. Or – to take the opposite perspective – if the conservation community were to stagnate as dysfunctionally as some bureaucracies, then staff positions, land acquisition funds, public support, and public benefit all drift away. We the people of the ecosystem care need at this crucial time in history to thrive as a core component of the planet’s culture.

In 1996, when politics threatened to end restoration programs in DuPage, Lake, and Cook Counties, some forest preserve staff sided with the critics. But some staff (like Bill Koenig, left) got together with volunteers (like Linda Masters, center), and board members (now Congressman, Mike Quigley, right) to educate and advocate. Here they're pulling garlic mustard, work that was actually forbidden in the early months of Forest Preserve President Stroger's moratorium.

Conservation staff and volunteers depend on each other.  When dedicated volunteer leaders are disempowered and discouraged by bureaucrats seeking unneeded and counterproductive types of control, the suffering extends to all concerned, including the staff and the ecosystem. The following situations are instructive:

• Cook County stewards are more empowered than in other counties, and Cook County’s stewardship budget and staff have grown fastest and biggest. A vigorous volunteer constituency leads to more political support and more resources. 
• The Illinoisstate staff tried to build a dedicated and creative volunteer constituency. But others sought to disenfranchise that volunteer corps (trying to trade it for a more controlled constituency), and the state conservation budget (and staff numbers) declined. 
• When the Kane County FPD director assembled his (until then independent) stewards into a formal FPD advisory group, the preserves began to get their first restoration resources and staff. 
• At Bartel Grassland (the first site to resume full restoration after the Cook County moratorium) close collaboration - between staff, volunteer leaders, and the neighbors - resulted in a totally positive project, despite the need for then-controversial tree cutting.

The community of stewards that emerged in the eighties was deeply different from what many people think of as volunteer programs. Hospital volunteers don’t do some of the operations when the medical staff can’t handle the volume. Stewards are more like rural volunteer fire departments. Stewardship volunteers not only “operate” on the ecosystem, they also do research to develop techniques in this new field.

At the height of the supportive publicity, we leaders and staff were inundated by organizations from other states and other countries asking how to do it. Many conservation agency leaders came to us to study how this works.

But, except in rare cases, they didn’t get enlightened. They didn’t want to hear what we had to say. They sought something easy and automatic. They wanted magic zombie volunteers who would show up, do exactly what they were told, and then sit and wait patiently (without any ideas of their own) for their next task. The kinds of volunteers they wanted typically need a lot of expensive supervision.

Many fine volunteers are docile. But these aren’t the leaders. Early leaders recruited other good leaders, and they recruited and coordinated the rest. The key was empowering the right leaders.

What words best describe the volunteer leaders? “Creative?” and “spirited?” We clicked those words in Thesaurus and found: “forceful, brave, determined, strong-willed, inventive, resourceful, ingenious, innovative, productive.” Yes, these are the people who deserve empowerment. And they don’t fit in a passive slot in a bureaucracy.   

Recruiting such people means having a “serious relationship” with them. Creative volunteers will do a huge amount - and make it work for the agency, if we’re respected and inspired by staff. Stewardship works because smart and energetic people are willing (indeed, eager) to throw themselves into something fun that is important. 

More than anyone else, Dr. Robert Betz founded the prairie restoration movement. By profession, he was a biochemist. But "the love of his volunteer life" was the prairie - and the work, people, and ideas needed to restore it (and our culture) to thriving richness. 

After a decade and a half, The Nature Conservancy lost its interest in leading the volunteer community. Then the National Audubon Society hired staff to do what TNC had been doing: organizing training events, recruiting new volunteer communities, hiring interns to support the volunteers on various "heavy lifting" projects, organizing the big biennial "Wild Things" conference, and whatever was needed. That too lasted for about a decade and a half, and then Audubon's interests turned elsewhere. At this stage of history, these big national organizations were too far removed to understand what was needed on the ground and in local spirits. 

Fortunately, volunteer leaders again rose to the occasion and organized the Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves in 2019. By that time, the Illinois Nature Preserves System had been without a director and other key staff for five years. Its status was threatened by attempts to fold it into the state bureaucracy and remove its collaborative independence. The new Friends group began successfully to advocate for restoring its dwindling budget and staff. They began to organize more stewards communities along with improved research, monitoring, and advocacy. As of early 2026, Friends include five staff stewardship Field Reps. Neither TNC nor Audubon ever had more than two. For "we the people" - the beat goes on.

Biodiversity and planetary care deserve more time and resources than they get. Our culture is challenged by consumerism, alienation, and self-defeating self-centeredness. Conservation communities can be part of much-needed revolutions? In 1862 our laws embraced the evil of slavery for millions of Americans. In 1918, women didn’t have the right to vote. In recent memory, no gay Americans were allowed to marry each other. For the health of the planet and its peoples, ongoing positive change is needed. Working for change can be a part of a great life. Volunteer leadership in ecological restoration can be a model part of a better future. 

The most important thing we conservation volunteers and professionals do is to save healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. But we also have a role in improving lives and culture overall.