Make No Small Plans

Chicago becomes the first major U.S. city with a plan for biodiversity

By Ron Trigg

This spring, the City of Chicago will introduce the Chicago Nature and Wildlife Plan, a document more than a hundred pages long and two years in the making. If it lives up to billing, the plan could lead to the acquisition of hundreds of acres of currently unprotected natural land and the conversion of almost one thousand acres to quality habitat. Perhaps most importantly, the document would reinforce Chicago’s commitment to being a leader in the greening of America’s cities.

Mayor Richard M. Daley has taken a personal interest in the project from the beginning. Recognizing that “nature is an integral and important part of Chicago’s fabric,” he says the plan is “one important step along the path toward making our city a place where people and nature live in harmony.”

Jerry Adelmann, chair of the Mayor’s Nature and Wildlife Committee and executive director of Openlands Project (he’s also a board member of this magazine), was instrumental in the plan’s development. He describes the plan as “visionary and exceptional, a dramatic statement for this city to make.” Chicago is, according to Adelmann, the first major U.S. city to make such a commitment. “This is more than beautification and tree planting,” he says. “It shows that Chicago is a place where nature really matters, and since the City of Chicago is the very heart of Chicago Wilderness, this is a significant development for the whole region.”

The city’s Department of Planning and Development and Adelmann’s Committee produced the plan with input from representatives of more than 30 conservation organizations, including Chicago Wilderness and many of its members. (The plan’s authors acknowledge the Chicago Wilderness Biodiversity Recovery Plan as a major inspiration in its development.) In February, the Chicago Plan Commission approved the plan unanimously. The Chicago Park District and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County will also be asked to sign on.

The first of the plan’s four major goals is to protect remaining natural areas. The plan calls for the acquisition of as many as 800 unprotected acres. It suggests cooperative efforts with conservation and state agencies to make natural and manmade structures friendlier to wildlife (consider the Chicago River Fish Hotel), strengthen river setback requirements, and limit motorized traffic on some waterways.

The plan’s second goal is to manage existing open space to sustain and expand the viability of native flora and fauna. It identifies 921 acres as land to be restored as habitat, and calls for the coordination of existing restoration plans and the promotion of volunteer programs to involve a variety of organizations and individuals in management activities.

The third goal of the plan is to monitor sites and compile research, including baseline inventories, which will increase the scientific data necessary to make responsible decisions and set priorities for habitat improvement. It will set up programs to monitor threatened and endangered species and to evaluate how various human activities impact biodiversity.

“We must embrace the vision that Chicago is a place where biodiversity protection and habitat preservation are fundamental assumptions.”

— Lee Botts, Alliance for the Great Lakes

The fourth and final goal is to educate the public by spreading information on the importance of biodiversity conservation and developing outreach programs in coordination with partner organizations.

Those involved in the plan’s preparation view it as a work in progress, a living document that will evolve over the years and spawn more new initiatives. While the plan sets its sights on new ground, it is in many ways a compilation of ideas and projects already in progress. The city’s inventory of its habitat sites, which appears prominently in the plan (see the chart below), is one example. The Department of Planning and Development, working under a grant from the U.S. Forest Service, began to survey sites in 2002, before the plan was underway. The effort identified and mapped 97 habitat sites, located primarily along the Chicago River and the shorelines of Lake Michigan and Lake Calumet. In total, surveyors found these sites to comprise some 3,800 acres of existing habitat — roughly 2.6 percent of the city’s land base. In the new plan, detailed aerial maps of each site identify unique natural characteristics and goals for improvement.

The plan leverages previous innovations such as a recently created zoning category that specifically recognizes and protects wildlife habitat: Parks and Open Space–Natural Areas (POS-3). The plan recommends applying it to sites across the city, “to prevent their redevelopment for other uses.”

Another example of this synergy is the working of a more comprehensive biodiversity perspective into already existing programs such as the Calumet Open Space Reserve, Chicago Water Agenda (download PDF file), Chicago River Agenda, and the Lights Out program, which protects migrating birds. The city’s Department of Environment is also preparing a new Chicago Bird Agenda based on the plan’s recommendations.

Ultimately, the Chicago Nature and Wildlife Plan will be judged by how successfully it achieves its goals. Chicago has been the wellspring for many visionary ideas over the years: the creation of the forest preserves, the preservation of the lakefront for public use, the establishment of excellent city parks, the birth of the study of ecology. Will future generations look back on the Chicago Nature and Wildlife Plan as another? Or will it become just another well-meaning program introduced with great fanfare only to be quickly forgotten?

Adelmann is convinced that this plan will succeed. “It has strong support from Mayor Daley,” he notes, “and the Mayor’s Nature and Wildlife Committee will shepherd its implementation and push an active agenda.” Many of the plan’s supporters, including Adelmann and others involved in its production, cite the collaborative nature of the development process as one of the plan’s strengths. The final document represents the consensus of a wide variety of participants representing a broad array of interests and views. Maintaining this cooperative spirit is crucial to the plan’s success.

Longtime environmental activist Lee Botts, a life board member of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, thinks the plan is a “terrific beginning,” but she views education and promotion as the keys to making it succeed. “The people who live, work, and do business in the city,” she says, “must embrace the vision that Chicago is a place where biodiversity protection and habitat preservation are fundamental assumptions. That’s the real challenge.” Making that happen is a daunting assignment, but this new plan seems a promising first step.