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Waves of tallgrass prairie once covered millions of acres across North America. Today, less
than one-tenth of one percent of these historic grasslands remains.
In northeastern Illinois, the prairie changed dramatically – first through agriculture
and then again, when what is now the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie served as the home
ground of the Joliet Arsenal – an Army munitions factory.
“About 15 years ago, the Army transferred this land – about 18,000 acres – to the
USDA Forest Service. And our mission here is to restore what was the Joliet Army ammunitions
plant back to native tallgrass prairie, which basically when we’re done will be a patchwork
quilt of native upland prairie, a little bit of woodland and savannah, and wetland.
Layers of buildings, roads, ammunition storage bunkers and other infrastructure mark the
line between Midewin’s past and its future.
As the largest swath of open space in the greater Chicago Wilderness region, Midewin
harbors our best hope to restore a diverse native tallgrass prairie ecosystem.
That hope has brought together many partners dedicated to revitalizing the prairie, and
led the National Forest Foundation to designate Midewin as keystone site under the Treasured
Landscapes restoration campaign.
“If you think about it – where in the United States do you go to see tallgrass prairie?
You’re going to see things like mountains, you’ve got deserts, you’ve got national
parks for seashores – but east of the Mississippi, you’re going to go see tallgrass prairie
and it’s all been destroyed. And this is our opportunity – a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
– to bring prairie back to Illinois, the Prairie State.”
For more than a decade, dozens of organizations and hundreds of volunteers have helped the
Forest Service bring new life to the prairie.
The National Forest Foundation has now made a commitment to ramp up the pace of restoration
and reconnect Americans to the splendor of our iconic Midwestern prairie lands.
Our restoration focus is on the South Prairie Creek Outwash Plain. Here, we are working
to bridge two ongoing restoration projects as well as many native prairie and wetland
remnants. The work involves removing old Army infrastructure, eradicating invasive species,
seeding native plants, and restoring the natural flow and wetlands associated with Prairie
Creek.
Hand-in-hand with prairie restoration, we also aim to restore the connection between
people and the land. Community members will enjoy opportunities for hands-on volunteerism,
youth education, and enhanced outdoor recreation activities.
Looking to the future, the NFF also brought together Midewin stakeholders to collaborate
on a long-term vision for restoring the entire prairie.
The resulting plan lays out a strategy for returning Midewin to all of its native tallgrass
glory – and for enticing thousands of visitors to experience our prairie heritage as it once
was through expanded prairie access, trails, interpretive sites – even the return of
bison.
Rare are the opportunities to restore nature to a place where it had been forgotten … extraordinary
is the chance to reintroduce our former ecological bounty to modern generations.
Midewin offers us this unique gift and in return is most certainly deserving of its
status as a Treasured Landscape.