Future of Prairie - the view from Vermont Cemetery

Prairies, natural ecosystems, now depend on us.

This post is about two older people who have made a huge difference and one younger person who aims to.

On July 7, 2019, Matt Evans (in his twenties) questioned Espie and Don Nelson (in their seventies). The Nelsons are stewards of Vermont Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve. Matt has a fellowship to study (and benefit, if possible) the Illinois Nature Preserves System. Part of his motivation is that he is considering a career in this field. What is its future? 

Present in absentia was the late Professor Robert F. Betz, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and who inspired the 1980s “Prairie Fever” movement of conservation and restoration. When I visited Vermont Cemetery with Bob Betz, the one-acre prairie there was already known as a “best of the best” – an ecological treasure – surrounded by cornfields to the horizon. Would it survive? I listened to the great Professor, took photos, and for years lectured about this rare acre to any audience that had an interest. Betz and his Morton Arboretum friend Ray Schulenberg were the first volunteer stewards, starting in 1961. They pulled weeds, burned annually, and raised sufficient funds to erect a cyclone fence around the gem.

Today is my first visit back in four decades. (I’d been busy, helping other sites that didn't have such good stewards.) As we approach, Matt drives, not through corn fields, but through the subdivisions and commerce of Naperville. Bless their governmental hearts, the Will County Forest Preserve District acquired the cemetery and 24.4 surrounding acres of cornfields as buffer to establish the Vermont Cemetery Preserve. 

Matt Evans peers through the protective fence, as he prepares to meet a rare Grade A prairie and two rare Grade A people.  

An uncommon grassland bird, the dickcissel, sings its heart out as Espie unlocks the gate. Matt and I are allowed inside the fence as a rare privilege. But to survive, this prairie will need friends and stewards forever. Might it be hard to acquire them, locked behind a fence? We pull weeds. No casual hiker can enter the sacred Grade A one acre. Even the semi-sacred, one-acre special buffer, that was planted by the Nelsons with seed from the cemetery, is enclosed behind the wrought iron. Most people have to look through the fence. 

The Illinois Nature Preserves System was a world model. How's it doing now? Matt has been seeking insights and suggestions from officials and volunteers around the state.

“Staff can’t be the only managers of a place like this,” says Espie. They both speak fondly and even affectionately about staff people who have contributed over the years. “Will County Forest Preserves own about 20,000 acres – with less than ten people to manage them. That’s 2,500 acres each. A hard-working person cannot provide first-rate management to that amount. They need more volunteers. Staff will never have the time to do what we do.” 

Looking for sweet clover, we tiptoe in a wide loop to cover the whole two acres. Some invasives are still serious problems, after all these years. Some need herbicide. The challenge is to cure the infection without damaging the irreplaceable patient.  Matt asks whether Betz and Schulenberg advised them. “Schulenberg came once,” said Don. “He was reverential. Walked slowly and examined carefully. He had visited but hadn't been inside the fence since he and Betz installed it.” The famously humble Schulenberg figured that if other people were to be excluded, who was he to defile rare nature with his feet? And he knew that Betz was pulling the weeds. 

Matt asks the Nelsons how much of this work they do. Since retiring, they volunteer in natural areas several days a week, typically for three or four hours. “When we took this on, almost twenty years ago,” Don says, “we decided to do it as long as we were able, and as long as it was fun.” His eyes sparkled. It’s clearly still fun. 

Espie and Don represent the founding generation of natural areas stewards, for which the Chicago region became a role model for the planet. Matt could be said to represent the generation that wonders where all this is going. 

As at Vermont Cemetery and Lily Cache Prairie (shown above), nature preserves cared for by people like the Nelsons increasingly thrive. Others deteriorate. This blog has celebrated Illinois nature preserve history and heroes. It has also reported on sites in serious trouble, like Langham Island and Palatine Prairie.

Illinois Nature Preserves are supported by many dedicated staff and stewards, but perhaps not enough advocates. Some people argue that the preserves need bully pulpits and people to speak from them. What else do they need? Last January I wrote a few people around the state, asking for ideas. 

It turned out that a five-year Strategic Plan for the Illinois Nature Preserves System had been on line for the years 2015-2020. It painted a grim picture of a deterioration. It also provided an inspiring plan for the future. But it's posted as a draft, seeking comments by December 15, 2015. What happened to comments received? Was the plan or a revision ever approved? In late January I also wrote Nature Preserves Commission chair Donnie Dann for more info, exchanging a few emails over the months. He sought answers, but no one seemed to have them. 

Comments were to go to the Director, but according to the current website, that position as well as the other two top positions are “Vacant.” Under Governors Blagojevich, Quinn, and Rauner, conservation has suffered. Natural areas staff at all levels have been slashed throughout the Department of Natural Resources. The Nature Preserves Director position has been vacant for four years. 

Finally, on July 23, 2019, the answer came. The plan was indeed approved by the Commission on Sept. 15, 2015. The remaining staff are doing their best. Much is not getting done. 

Illinois long stood in the global forefront of conservation with the creation of the forest preserves, the Nature Preserves Commission, the ecosystem restoration movement, Natural Areas Inventory, Chicago Wilderness, four decades of big biennial conferences, and more. Are we still leading? What's now needed most? Matt asks such questions – as he considers local and planetary ecosystems – and where he can best contribute, as do many of us. 

The activists and stewards of the seventies and eighties fostered a community of conservationists that Matt has studied in school and hopes to contribute to in real life. Volunteers have been a major constituency, deserving credit for supporting budgets and staff – which increased dramatically, for some years, and then declined. As result or cause or both, some say that the community declines. Will staff replace volunteers? There’s much that staff can do better than volunteers. Is there also much that volunteers can do best – and could both groups benefit if they understood and supported each other better? 

The Grade A prairie at Vermont Cemetery is worth study.
An upcoming post will delve more. 

Matt has worked as a volunteer steward and professionally for Chicago Wilderness and Audubon Chicago Region. He likes to promote useful communication. Some of the people he has talked with early on have suggested that a Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves could be helpful to support staffing and budgets as well as recruiting and facilitating more stewards. Perhaps Matt would be willing to report back through this blog, as his work proceeds. 

For this post, I originally wrote lots more, or perhaps too much. The first companion post goes deeper into Vermont Cemetery Prairie. The third focuses personally on Don and Espie Nelson and also Lily Cache Prairie (another proposed nature preserve site, which the four of us also visited).