Daily Herald opinion: The suburbs play no small role in the global 'rewilding' effort
What if we could bring back all the nature that urban and suburban sprawl has kicked out?
OK, we're not going to turn the whole Chicago area back to an open area of prairie and forests. But a lot can be done even amid the concrete and asphalt.
The Associated Press last week reported on a "rewilding" movement that's growing, especially after a 2019 United Nations report showing animal and plant species dying off at an alarming rate. "Rewilding" is a broad term for reintroducing natural habitat - both wildlife and native plants - into urban and suburban settings. That can mean such actions as removing dams or building tunnels to reconnect migration pathways severed by roads.
"The idea might seem best suited to remote areas where nature is freer to heal without interference," the AP story said. "But rewilding also happens in some of the world's biggest urban centers."
Indeed, the report cited an example in Chicago, and we can cite several others in the suburbs just in the last decade.
The Chicago example is a project of the Shedd Aquarium and a nonprofit called Urban Rivers to install "floating wetlands" on part of the Chicago River. It would provide fish breeding areas as well as bird and pollinator habitat right in the city.
Several suburban projects have had similar goals, such as efforts to remove old dams. In a 2017 article, we listed nine dams on the Des Plaines and Fox rivers that had been removed since a 2012 state dam removal initiative began, with 14 more to go. Some big removal projects have been in the planning stages for a while, such as that for Carpentersville Dam, while others, like to remove the North Aurora Dam, have stalled for funding. There are still other projects in the works, like the removal of the Graue Mill Dam on Salt Creek through Oak Brook. That project is facing a lot of opposition from those who think the dam is an important part of the Graue Mill's history, and a couple of other dams may still be actually needed. But overall the dams interrupt the growth and natural migration of aquatic life, which hurts the ecosystem and water quality.
Other projects over the years have restored natural areas reshaped by people if not sprawl. At Ethel's Woods near Antioch in the early 2010s, the artificial Rasmussen Lake was drained and the natural, winding North Mill Creek restored. Meanwhile, voters approved a Cook County Forest Preserve referendum request this year, born from the larger "Next Century Conservation Plan," for funding to acquire and restore thousands of acres, making sure, among other things, plants and trees native to our area survive and thrive.
Speaking of trees, the Morton Arboretum in Lisle has a new CEO, Jill Koski, who assumes the goal of improving the area's tree canopy, which would help clean the air and water, reduce flooding, provide energy-saving shade and host wildlife.
The suburbs, of course, are here to stay. But as many metro areas worldwide are proving, we can bring some nature back. We've started to prove it, too, and we shouldn't stop.