The Agony and Ecstasy of Ecosystems: as revealed in nature preserve visions and politics

DRAFT POST

When Illinois adopted its Nature Preserves System in 1963, it was widely heralded as an inspirational and farsighted paradigm. Indeed, within the next two decades more than half the states from coast to coast followed suit. Some states did better than others. And like Illinois, all have had ups and downs.

Their history is worth some study. Success doesn’t “just happen”, and good results won’t “just survive.” It took – and it will take – people who care, have vision, and do the work. 

Figure 3.1 State natural areas as a percentage of all state public land
Davis: page 65

There have been glorious victories and scandalous losses, often mixed with each other. In Tennessee, for a preserve that was to be held “pristine”, officials announced plans to cut 2,000 acres of mature forest to plant crops to benefit quail hunting. People were outraged, and though it took a while, the result of that outrage was the “terminating” of the agency’s director, deputy, and several lawyers (for details, see Endnote 1).

This dramatic story comes from “The Other Public Lands” by Steven Davis (2022). He reminds us that the basic idea for Nature Preserves actually started with Aldo Leopold in Wisconsin (see Endnote 2), who in 1945 proposed what would become the State Board on the Preservation of Scientific Areas, finally coming to fruition in 1951 (two years after Leopold died). It emerged as a somewhat fragile system, initially, with sites being administratively “designated” but with no permanent protection. 

Davis is a professor of environmental and political sciences. For this book, he studied state parks, state forests, nature preserve systems, “fish and wildlife” (hunting) areas, and other state lands. This post will focus on nature preserves (which he refers to as “State Natural Areas” or “SNAs”), which he found especially impressive in that, “Despite tending to be tiny, poorly funded, and overlooked systems, they play an especially critical environmental role.”  

Table 3.1 STATE NATURAL AREAS
Partial table showing the 17 states with most natural area land
of the 38 states that have natural areas programs
Davis: page 62

Davis mistakenly refers to Illinois (see Endnote 3) as “administratively designating” rather than “legally dedicating” preserves. The “designating” systems are the weaker ones, giving areas an administrative status that can be removed at any time. In Illinois, Nature Preserves are legally dedicated in perpetuity. 

Even so, as Davis’s account demonstrates, such systems are only as strong as the support they maintain among influencers and voters. In Illinois, support slipped badly during the Blagojevich and Rauner administrations. Budgets were cut, Commission appointments stopped, and the Nature Preserves System went without a director and other key staff for many years. But the system was designed for resilience and was held together by a few dedicated staff and, eventually, outside support. 

Those dedicated and effective staff play a crucial role. (The indented sections below mostly quote but sometimes paraphrase Davis for the Illinois context: see Endnote 4): 

Despite their chronic underfunding, understaffing, and low visibility, state Nature Preserve programs have doggedly carried the flag for fragile places with outstanding biological qualities - and done so with great care and knowledge and affection. Though Nature Preserves are hamstrung by resource constraints and/or hostility from self-serving bureaucratic “decision-makers,” these programs bring tremendous force and expertise onto relatively small areas which makes transformative ecological management and restoration a rather viable goal. Surprisingly, this framework is truly unique to state land. While federal managers certainly act to preserve and restore rare ecological assets, this kind of designation and attention, with the care and restoration that often accompany it, do not have a direct federal analog. In fact, in states with highly developed Nature Preserve programs, like Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the ecologically special places within national forests are generally protected by overlapping state natural area status rather than any sort of internal Forest Service status (although this is certainly done with Forest Service cooperation).

In the Illinois system, the supervision of the staff once lay clearly in a Governor-appointed board of volunteer commissioners. In early years, this board always included at least a few of the state’s most knowledgeable and committed conservationists and at least a couple of people who were politically influential, often corporate leaders that had the ear of both Republican and Democratic governors. This part of the system was weakened in 1982 when Nature Preserves head George Fell and other staff were fired and the Department of Conservation (now Department of Natural Resources) took over much of the supervision of staff and appointments. That change increased the potential for political influences to do harm. But once again, dedicated conservationists among the staff and the public rose to the occasion. Such work is needed everywhere that government works:   

Perhaps because of the pressures of chronic deprivation, Nature Preserve managers have had to become quite adept at seeking innovative solutions to keep their biodiversity protected. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the complex, flexible, and mutually beneficial partnerships with nonprofit conservation organizations. While partnerships can be a sign of advanced neglect in a state park system, they can also sometimes be last-ditch defenses that have served to protect the most important aspects of wild and fragile places. The mutual trust and coordination present in these relationships extend to everything from science, and restoration to land acquisition. There is not an aspect of managing Nature Preserves that has not been helped along by legions of volunteers, citizen-scientists, and experts from nonprofits. 

A knowledgeable and dedicated constituency can support good staff leadership and head off poor bureaucratic decisions. Thus, Davis sees Nature Preserve Systems as models that State Parks could learn from: 

In an era of budget austerity and even defunding, very different sorts of “partnerships” sometimes plague state parks with adverse impacts from for-profit recreation corporations, concessionaires, resort developers, and other sorts of financially motivated “service providers.”

Both staff and volunteer advocates need collaboration and broad vision. That comes from empowerment, which is the opposite of “throw-in-the-towel-ism.” Nature Preserve staff and volunteer defenders may take more initiative because of the odds they’re used to. 

One crucial component that Davis writes little about is the boards of Nature Preserve Commissioners. When functioning well, these boards consist of independent, informed, and influential people who believe in Nature Preserves. It has been noted that, when bureaucrats are eager to subvert the Nature Preserve mission, they try to arrange for Commissioners to represent agencies that depend on the State for revenue, as they are more subject to manipulation. Thus the most effective commissioners are often private citizen-conservationists or retired staff people with long histories in academic or other conservation jobs or avocations.  Conservation agencies with influence in Springfield would be wise to do the work necessary to assure the appointment of energetic and independent Commissioners. One of the deepest threats to the Illinois system was the decades when no new Commissioners were appointed for so long that all Commissioners’ terms had expired. Where were the advocates and influencers? The assumption apparently had been that the system was so strong that it would weather the storm. That assumption was nearly fatal, the history of which should be told somewhere, but it's too much for this post. As of 2025, current Governor JB Pritzker has made some excellent appointments and restored some funding. 

Personal note:  When I worked as a Nature Preserves Field Rep, long ago, we staff were all proud to assure everyone that this noble system was so strong that it hadn’t lost a single acre to the constant demands that some of its lands be seized by other agencies to build a road, a hospital, a school, or other valuable purposes that could and should be accommodated elsewhere. Perhaps that proud record still holds, but sadly, many acres of precious natural ecosystem have been lost to invasive brush or other avoidable biological destruction. If the ecosystem has been obliterated by buckthorn or Johnson grass, it makes little difference whether it’s “legally” protected. 

The law requires the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission to present the legislature and the public with a report on the health of the preserves every two years. This has not been done since 2002, which is in part understandable because caring for the system is a very big job for which there is little funding. But assessment is also critically needed if losses are to be understood, resources found, and recovery implemented. In response to reports to the Commission from the Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves, new Commissioners Marcy DeMauro and John Rogner have begun taking needed initiative in that direction. 

Increasing numbers of people now care and are active. That bodes well.

 

Endnotes

Endnote 1

The drama from Tennessee involves the 10,000-acre Bridgestone-Firestone Centennial Wilderness, which had been donated to the state with provisions that it be maintained as “pristine.” Davis refers to this land as “celebrated and much-beloved tract of land called by some the ‘Grand Canyon of the Cumberlands’ and chock full of waterfalls, native pictographs, steep bluffs and abundant old growth. Tennessee has a Natural Areas program which includes 84 areas. But this area was placed in the care of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). And in 2021 it announced plans to clear-cut 2,000 acres of mature and old growth forest in the heart of the preserve and adjacent to a state natural area. Their purpose was to “restore” quail habitat for hunting. The agency insisted that it was merely following the science for good wildlife habitat. “Especially galling to the opponents was the fact that the WMA (Wildlife Management Area) also included many nearby acres of regenerating farmlands and old pine plantations that would be perfectly suitable for restoring to grasslands for the quail.” Indeed, some people were suspicious that a big part of their motivation was to sell the highly-valuable timber and get funding for other purposes. Save the Hardwoods, was formed as a coalition of hikers, hunters, environmentalists, and civic leaders. The nearest town council announced opposition, as did the local chamber of commerce. “But the TWRA insisted that only the exact location they chose in the heart of the mature forest would do.” Bureaucrats are usually pretty good at steering away from the outrageous when it’s exposed publicly. But in this case, the threat was removed only when the agency’s key leadership “including the director, deputy, and several counsels, were all terminated.”  

Endnote 2

https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/StateNaturalAreas/About

Wisconsin State Natural Areas Program is not only the oldest but also the largest with 694 preserves totaling 406,000 acres in 2022. 37% are owned by outside partners, especially federal, county, and not-for-profit agencies. In 1985, the legislation was amended to give legally dedicated areas additional protection. Such areas now include 22% of the preserves.

Endnote 3

Illinois Nature Preserves in 2026 number 634 sites totaling 126,760 acres. Of these, 423 (68%) are legally dedicated and 211 are Land and Water Reserves, for which protection may be less strict or permanent. 

Endnote 4

This blog has always sought to make these posts accessible to all interested people. Parts of Davis book are burdened with acronyms – SNAs, WMAs, NPS, LWCF, etc. What we in Illinois refer to as Nature Preserves in other states are called Scientific Areas,” “Natural Areas,” or other names. So he typically refers to them “SNAs” (State Natural Areas). In most cases, for the summaries above, that acronym is replaced with “Nature Preserves” – thinking those words would be more accessible to Illinois readers. Though overall I found Davis wise and compelling, in addition to acronym challenges in some places Davis’s language was more obscure than it needed to be, possibly to avoid controversy through soft-pedaling a bit – perhaps needed by an academic, but not here.

So, for example, for clarity, I paraphrased:

“Despite all the ways that SNAs are hamstrung by resource constraints and/or hostility from external policy-makers …”

with:

“Though Nature Preserves are hamstrung by resource constraints and/or hostility from self-serving bureaucratic ‘decision-makers’ …”

I’m sympathetic with anyone who finds such editing excessive, but as a long-time editor, I try to clarify when I can. 

If you want to read Davis exact words for some section, let me know in a comment, and I’ll try to dig them out for you. If you want his exact words for all summaries, why not just buy his good book. It’s $29.95 in paperback. (Some people with institutional access can also probably get it free on line.)