‘Original North America’: Barrington Hills land restored to natural prairie

The passion Citizens For Conservation volunteers have for preserving and restoring Illinois' natural areas is palpable.

It's evident in the way longtime volunteers Jim Vanderpoel and Wendy Paulson stop frequently along the mile-long trail that winds through Barrington Hills’ 44-acre Grigsby Prairie to trail their fingers over the prairie flora and point out the birds, butterflies and small invertebrates that call it home.

“We're walking into original North America now,” Paulson, a Barrington resident and 45-year CFC member, said during a hike Monday through the grassland preserve located along Buckley and Oak Noll roads.

CFC's first prairie reconstruction and the state's oldest, Grigsby Prairie is one of 14 natural areas the Barrington-based organization operates in the area. The preserve occupies land donated to the organization more than three decades ago by Peggy Richards in honor of her farmer father, who tended the land for many years.

The reconstruction resulted from the federal government's “no net loss” wetland mitigation initiative, which requires developers to compensate communities for the loss of native lands.

Among the hundreds of native plants and grasses thriving in the prairie are an array of wildflowers: yellow compass plants whose leaves point north and south; Indian hemp, characterized by tiny white buds; lavender-colored milkweed; and the familiar black-eyed Susans towering over neighboring plants.

Overhead, a bald eagle soared while bobolinks, rusty-patched bumblebees, common buckeyes and monarch butterflies flitted below.

Grigsby is more than a restored prairie, said Dr. Abigail Derby Lewis, CFC executive director, during a tour highlighting the group's northern Illinois restoration efforts. “It's a community investing in its own future.”

Grasslands are crucial when it comes to developing solutions to combat climate change, said Derby Lewis.

To that end, conservationists say restoring and protecting natural areas helps maintain biodiverse habitats and mitigate flood and drought damage. However, the valuable ecological resource has steadily disappeared from the nation as a whole and the Prairie State in particular.

Prairie grasslands once covered 170 million acres, or a third of North America, Derby Lewis said. Once the continent's largest continuous ecosystem, it's now the most endangered, she said.

In 1820, Illinois had 22 million acres of prairie land, she said. Only 0.01% still exists today, she said, “a stupidly small amount.”

“We want the public to know how important this ecosystem is for people and for nature,” Derby Lewis said.

Spending two hours on the prairie, a person can observe hundreds of insects and birds, she said.

“If you plant it, they will find it,” she said.

That includes backyards and balconies.

According to Derby Lewis, homeowners can assist conservation efforts by devoting 2% of their outdoor space to indigenous plants such as milkweed, monarda (which attracts hummingbirds and butterflies) and little bluestem, a type of prairie grass. An additional benefit: such species require minimal water and no fertilizer.

She also recommends planting species that thrive during every part of the growing season to feed wildlife.

“The climate impact is a huge value add for conservation,” she said. “People can take real-time action to make a difference.”