Our wild places, all of them, compel us to recognize that we the people are part of a community of living things.

Fall 2001

Neighbors to Wilderness

This morning I walked in a prairie in all its late summer glory. Tall grasses waved over my head. Birds and butterflies flew about. Flowers bloomed high and low.

I could hear traffic sounds in the background, and soon I would reach the asphalt borders of this small but precious tract. Can this be wilderness, a 90-acre remnant of the vast tallgrass prairie? Isn’t there somewhere else where I can truly get away from it all?

But increasingly, conservationists and thoughtful citizens have come to recognize that ‘it’ is us, which is to say, the idea that any natural area no matter how large or how remote exists untouched by “the hand of man” is now a figment, a dream. It is not the story of life on planet Earth in the new millennium.

No habitat for humans or any other species can survive, protected and healthy, without the advocacy and care of people. Wilderness areas are human constructs – protected by legal designations with no potency except the willingness of human beings, generation after generation, to respect and endorse them. John Rogner, chair of the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council (Chicago Wilderness) and a fisheries biologist by training, makes this point eloquently in his essay.

The wild areas in our region have been hammered, for sure. As you can read in “Wilder Woods?” by Kathleen Kostel, the continuing degradation of our woodlands by the encroachment of invasive species, lack of fire, overbrowsing by deer, and changes in water flow are a cause for concern – and a cry to action. But these places are seasonal homes to species that also live in the Arctic tundra and the rainforests of Ecuador. Our wild places are absolutely critical to the survival of monarchs and lesser yellowlegs, of hairstreak butterflies (pictured here) and noble oaks. These places are different from, but sibling companions to, our country’s vast western tracts, where jets hum overhead and acid rains from factories fall. Our wild places, all of them, compel us to recognize that we the people are part of a community of living things.

In this issue you will read about the exciting plans for the Calumet region – a place that many would consider nothing more than a postindustrial wasteland. Yet Indian Ridge Marsh is home to the largest nesting colony of black-crowned night herons in the state of Illinois (where this bird is endangered). Few would have given nature in this area much of a chance to heal. Many would have said these marshes and woods were too far gone to even bother with.

But passionate people like Marian Byrnes, Jim Landing, Walter Marcisz, and others, studied and cared and fought and attended countless meetings in order to save and even restore the nature here. In the Calumet region, these visionary heroes had that true sense of community, of living in a place where birds and plants and people could be healthy together.
In this coming season, let us give thanks to Marian Byrnes, to John Rogner, to the red-shouldered hawk, the hairstreak butterfly, the prairie dock, the wild white indigo. They are our neighbors. They will show us the way.

Debra Shore may be reached at editor@chicagowildernessmag.org.