Fall 1998

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1998.]

First Metropolis of the Future

By Jane Elder

A few years ago, I conducted several focus groups in the Chicago area, asking questions about why people value nature. "Let me just say," offered one participant, "one of the joys is looking out in my backyard and hearing and seeing a cardinal. You cannot develop a color red like that cardinal."

This man suggested one of those intangible reasons for caring about the natural world: it brings us personal joy. Yet we also need nature for the health of the planet's life support systems‹and for food, beauty, recreation, medicine, spiritual experiences, and more.

Chicago Wilderness is a unique, bold and fascinating experiment in bringing people, institutions and nature together for our common good. In the Biodiversity Project's experience across the US and Canada, we've seen nothing else like it. In fact, we have feelers out around the globe, too, and so far there's nothing comparable on the planet. Thus, this growing collaboration of organizations, institutions and individuals is emerging as a possible model for other large metropolitan areas seeking to conserve and celebrate their natural heritage.

Chicago Wilderness has bridged many boundaries that elsewhere have become barriers in environmental politics. Here educational institutions have found ways to work with advocacy groups, and government agencies have been engaged as partners, instead of as the routine opposition. In spite of the great diversity of missions and agendas within its member groups, the partners in Chicago Wilderness have hammered out a common vision that strengthens every group's work. But perhaps what is most exciting is the emerging hopeful vision for a vital, living landscape in this very urban region. We sense the promise of what is possible when good people come together for a common cause.

Nearly half of the world's people are living in cities, and globally, all trends point to an increasingly urban human existence. In the United States, many of us have connections to a family farm, or perhaps to a fishing village in "the old country" or a similar experiential or emotional connection to a real place in the land and the natural world. However, with each new generation growing up among concrete, packaged food, electric lights, air conditioning, etc., the connections to the rest of life are increasingly tenuous.

Our agrarian predecessors understood the life of soil, seasons and water cycles, but "the environment" is a mere abstraction to many modern city dwellers who spend the bulk of their lives indoors. E. O. Wilson, a leading conservation biologist, writes about what's happening as an "extinction of experience" with the natural world. Without these life experiences, it is harder for any of us to understand or care about nature or living systems. We care most about the things we know and love. Thus, if we are to have any hope of building communities that take pride in good stewardship for nature, we must help people learn to know and love their local landscape.

In this sense, Chicago Wilderness offers an antidote to the "extinction of experience" by weaving together a community to celebrate and restore its biological systems. If Chicago-area citizens reawaken to the living tapestry with which all human lives are entwined, there is hope of reconnecting a sense of stewardship for the wild landscape within the densely populated metropolitan region. And, it is this bold vision that makes Chicago's experiment an exciting challenge to other metropolitan regions. Imagine the possibilities if every major urban center had a similar "wilderness" mission. Houston, we have an opportunity!

And so, the eyes of the American environmental community—and some from Madagascar and Sao Paolo and Warsaw—are watching to see how Chicago Wilderness plays out. As the pages of this magazine repeatedly show, this multidisciplinary, multifaceted approach is connecting people with the living planet in fresh, new ways. No single approach or organization has the ability to reach as broadly as this coalition does.

Whether individuals encounter the information in a headline, a classroom, at a favorite beach, the museum, on the trail, or in this magazine, Chicago-area citizens have multiple opportunities to learn. This diversity of resources and opportunities increases the chances of reaching people at their łteachable moments˛ and connecting with any individual's particular needs and experience.

Conservationists need to reach people where they are, not where we wish they would be. We need to engage people in a dialogue that respects the varied values, concerns, and experiences of our neighbors. In a 1996 national poll on attitudes about the environment, 71 percent of Americans agreed that we have a responsibility to leave the earth in good shape for future generations. A majority of Americans—67 percent—also believe that nature is God's creation and humans should respect God's work.

Yet no single type of language or program will speak to everyone. To engage people in caring about their natural world, we need to offer experiences at many levels. For some, the magic might be in a zoo exhibit that expands basic awareness and sparks a sense of wonder. For another, it may be the opportunity to join up with an activist group to tackle a tough conservation policy and make a direct difference. For many, it's the chance to collect seeds, help out with prescribed burns, and pull weeds to restore healthy nature to a site nearby. Through collaboration and coordination, the many voices for Chicago Wilderness can help ensure that the messages that reach Chicago-area citizens about nature and biodiversity are clear and compelling.

In the Biodiversity Project's work, we urge those involved with conservation outreach to make the local connections to species and habitats as visible as possible, whether it's the way trees and other plants provide us with oxygen, the role that spiders and bats play in keeping the local insect populations in check, or the way a swamp helps prevent flooding, we all need reminders on how we are connected with the "circle of life." Greater Chicago has always been a hardworking community, strengthened by its rich ethnic and cultural diversity. Can it expand the embrace of its Big Shoulders to include the diversity of nature in this remarkable land of prairies, savannas, dunes, and forests arching around the southern reach of Lake Michigan? Only time and work will tell the tale. But many observers see the Chicago region as once again on the frontiers of human experience. We wish you well.

Jane Elder directs the Biodiversity Project on behalf of an association of more than 40 grantmakers that provide funds for the conservation of habitat and species. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, with a staff of three, the Project was established in 1995 with several missions: first, to assess public opinion on biodiversity; second, to identify strategies that will increase public awareness and engagement; and third, to lay the groundwork for implementing those strategies by fostering collaboration among leaders in the field.