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The 2022 ComEd Green Region Grant Is Now Available to Nonprofits, Educational Institutions, and More

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For the past decade, the ComEd Green Region Grant has provided funding to municipalities all over Northern Illinois for conservation projects that plan for, protect, and restore natural places and support climate resilience and pollinator habitats. In celebration of its tenth year, ComEd has expanded the applicant pool to include a wider variety of organizations. Non-profit organizations, schools, school districts, housing authorities, townships, counties, park districts, conservation districts, forest preserve districts, and municipalities within ComEd’s service territory are now all eligible to apply for matching awards up to $10,000. 

Since 2013, ComEd competitive grant programs have made investments in communities to improve their infrastructure and quality of life. Collectively, these programs have delivered funding to improve green infrastructure, like parks, and to expand clean transportation in communities across northern Illinois.

Due to the success of Grant projects over the previous decade, the teams at ComEd and Openlands hope that expanding the opportunity to include a broader range of organizations will diversify the types of projects pursued. Projects can include, but are not limited to, planting trees, building rain gardens and butterfly gardens at schools, remediating toxic soil, and landscaping with native plants. 

The ComEd Green Region Grants are flexible and available to any organization listed above that can outline a project plan based on the program guidelines. While a variety of projects will be accepted, priority will be shown to projects that demonstrate a climate resiliency focus. The climate crisis is an imminent threat that puts the Chicago region at an increased risk for flooding, extreme heat, and invasive species. Along with the threat of climate change, overdevelopment has led to severe habitat loss that puts pollinators, on which the food chain depends, at risk of endangerment and extinction. Projects that increase native plantings, build the tree canopy, remove invasive species, capture rainwater and purify waterways all have a very real impact on the health of our ecosystems and the resilience of our region.

Previous grantees like the Chicago Park District, who received a grant in 2018 to install native plants and repair trails to increase site access at Palmisano Park in Bridgeport, have already seen an increase in butterfly traffic. According to Jason Steger, the Natural Areas Manager for the Chicago Park District, “The ComEd Green Region grant allowed us to improve pollinator habitat at Palmisano Park in a meaningful way. Volunteers of all ages helped us install the thousands of flowering native plants we were able to purchase with grant funds. In an area that was previously dominated by grasses, these plants provide food for pollinators and enhance the color palette of the natural area throughout the growing season.”

Applications are open until March 25 at 5pm, and no matter how small the project scope, all qualifying organizations are encouraged to apply! Organizations will require a cash match equal or greater to the funding requested at the time of application. If you have an idea for a conservation project at your organization, you are encouraged to apply for the 2022 ComEd Green Region Grant. If you are unsure whether your project idea qualifies for the Grant, feel free to reach out to the Green Region team at Openlands.

TreeKeepers Celebrates its 30th Anniversary with the Creation of TreeKeepers Chapters

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This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Openlands TreeKeeper’s Program. In that time, over 2,200 passionate advocates for nature have taken the TreeKeepers Course, learning the basics of trees and tree care. TreeKeepers have dedicated their time and energy to learning how to prune, plant, and advocate for the Chicago region’s urban forest. In honor of TreeKeepers’ 30th anniversary, Openlands is looking at the tremendous impact that TreeKeepers have made over the past five years, especially the important work that these dedicated volunteers have accomplished throughout the pandemic.

One of the most exciting new developments of the last five years is the leadership that TreeKeepers have taken to create local Chapters. TreeKeepers have taken it upon themselves to plan workdays and work with a variety of partners, including park districts, Alderpeople, municipalities, and others, to plant new trees in places where they’re most needed and perform ongoing pruning to keep existing trees healthy.

The most robust and first TreeKeepers Chapter is based in Hyde Park and was started by Nancy Joseph, who completed the TreeKeepers course in 2013 and proudly wears the badge of TreeKeeper 1,189. According to Nancy, who originally trained as a Master Naturalist with the Forest Preserves of Cook County before taking the TreeKeepers course, becoming a TreeKeeper completely changed the way she engages with the world around her:

“I can’t walk down the street now without looking at a tree that needs to be pruned and what I would do to that tree. It has changed the way I move around my neighborhood significantly. Working in some of the neighborhoods where we work has really made me appreciate the difference between areas that have a lot of trees versus those that don’t have trees.”

These realizations led her to notice how much work needed to be done in her home community of Hyde Park, where she has lived for 24 years. Nancy initially began pruning cherry trees on her own at Jackson Park with the help of Jerome Scott, the District Forester of the Chicago Park District and also a volunteer TreeKeeper. Eventually, Nancy connected with other TreeKeepers in Hyde Park and formed a group that met for workdays twice per month, once to prune trees on the street and once at a local park. The group grew over time along with a dedicated core group of people in Hyde Park. They are often joined by TreeKeepers from all around the city and suburbs to help prune trees.

While the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily put TreeKeepers activities on hold, once the group received permission from the Park District and Openlands, they started weekly pruning events. According to Nancy, these events helped provide a sense of purpose during the challenging global crisis:

“It was exciting to have something to do. We had a core group that would come weekly and would prune huge stretches in Washington Park and the Midway [Plaisance]. It was a nice respite for all of us, and we got an awful lot of trees pruned.”

Now, the Hyde Park Chapter has resumed twice-monthly pruning sessions. The impact of their dedicated work cannot be underestimated, and their work helped nearly double the number that TreeKeepers pruned from 2,000 to 4,000 trees.

The Hyde Park TreeKeepers Chapter is an example of the impact that committed TreeKeepers can have in their community over time, and there is an opportunity to form TreeKeeper-led chapters, both inside and outside of Chicago.

One of the newest burgeoning chapters is located in Downers Grove, where there is currently an exciting collaboration between the Downers Grove Park District and the TreeKeepers Program. Mike Stelter currently serves as the Superintendent of Natural Resources at Downers Grove Park District and approached Openlands TreeKeepers Program Manager Al De Reu in 2019 about forming a partnership. Stelter was developing an urban forest management plan, and the Park District identified the need to involve citizens in forestry work and engage an active group of volunteers in tree care and planting.

The TreeKeepers program was included in the urban forest management plan, and while the creation of the Downers Grove TreeKeepers Chapter was temporarily put on hold due to the pandemic, small workdays began in the fall of 2020 and have continued since.

One of the biggest challenges that the Downers Grove Chapter faces is the need for more trained TreeKeepers based in the suburbs. The majority of TreeKeepers are based in Chicago, and Stelter hopes to garner more interest from local volunteers in the training and grow a group of dedicated TreeKeepers in Dupage County.

Curtis Fahlberg is one of a few Dupage County residents trained as a TreeKeeper, and he is currently leading the charge for the Downers Grove Chapter. Curtis was trained in 2019 and is currently a Hinsdale resident, where he says he has benefitted from the dense tree canopy and the diverse array of species that were planted in response to Dutch elm disease.

According to Curtis, he hopes to get local residents engaged with the TreeKeepers Program, as he says it is a rewarding experience that benefits both individuals and the local community: “Some new volunteers are getting a shovel in their hands for the first time and they are getting their hands dirty for the first time. They just have no idea what’s inside these root balls and it’s quite an adventure. It’s been fabulous therapy throughout the pandemic.”

On a recent workday in October, Curtis described how personal the planting of a tree can be. He planted a sweet gum tree for his niece Abigail and her husband Mike, who will be having a baby soon. He hopes to bring their family to visit the tree and watch it grow over time.

“It’s a very hopeful thing to plant a tree,” he explained.

TreeKeeper Nancy also spoke of her hope for the future of the TreeKeepers Program, explaining the value of expanding chapters into more communities:

“I hope that people who have had the training find that now is an important time to get involved with trees, as they’re so critical to so many of the ecosystem services of an urban environment. We really need people to get out and help. I hope we can encourage more people to create groups in their neighborhood.”

You can learn more about the TreeKeepers Program and how to get involved with the creation of local chapters here. We look forward to another 30 years!

Announcing the Winners of the Route 53 Fields of Vision Photo Contest

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The Green Corridor Coalition is proud to announce the winners of the ‘Fields of Vision’ photography contest, and we were absolutely blown away by all of the beautiful photos that were submitted!

The Green Corridor Coalition is a group of friends, residents, environmentalists, politicians, and visionaries fighting to protect the land that comprises the old Route 53 Corridor, one of Lake County’s most scenic natural landscapes. The group is pushing to turn a formerly proposed tollway corridor into a greenway — a trail through a long narrow nature preserve with a climate corridor that connects communities with parks and natural landscapes, making Lake County and our region more resilient, livable, and economically competitive. Illinois lawmakers recently approved a resolution calling for a task force to study alternate uses for the proposed extension of Illinois Route 53 in the northwest suburbs.

We received 55 submissions for the contest, but nine stood out as winners across our three categories. Please welcome us in congratulating the following individuals who placed in the contest:

Advanced Amateur:

First Place: David Jacobson – “Kestral Flyover”

Second Place: Michael Schmitt – “Killdeer Kildeer Killdeer”

Third Place: Mike Trahan – “Lone Chickory at the Wood Edge”

Amateur Over 18:

First Place: Jen Miller – “Broccoli Sunrise”


Second Place: Cheryl Keegan “Majestic Sandhill Crane”

Third Place: Gina Sheade – “Heron Creek Trail”

Amateur Under 18:

First Place: Kaavya Vassa “Heron Creek”

Second Place: Carter Conrad “A Vibrant Sunset”

Third Place: Anika Bhargava – “Berries in the Sun”

Key Takeaways from the COP26 Climate Conference

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Last week, COP26, the largest climate change conference in the world, concluded in the United Kingdom after 12 days of meetings between global leaders. COP26, or the Conference of Parties, is an annual U.N. meeting of 197 countries that have agreed to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. This decision-making body assesses how countries are dealing with the climate crisis and establishes legal obligations on these countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The overall goal of the conference is to reduce GHG emissions enough to keep the global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, keeping the world from some of the most disastrous effects of climate change. Experts saw this year’s conference as holding a unique urgency, as many believed it to be the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control. 

This year marked 26 years of the annual summit, though many people consider the COP21 Conference in Paris to have been the most significant, due to the birth of the Paris Climate Agreement. There, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees, to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to deliver on these aims. However, the commitments laid out in Paris did not come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, which is why this year’s summit in Glasgow was seen as critical to bringing nations together to commit to radically reduce their emissions. However, COP26 concluded with mixed reviews from the environmental community, and experts say the goals made this year fail to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal on limiting warming. So, was COP26 a success? 

Takeaways

  • The biggest takeaway of the conference was the creation of the Glasgow Climate Pact, which for the first time made a commitment to phase down coal and fossil-fuel subsidies. Acknowledging the need to phase out coal to drastically reduce warming was one of the biggest breakthroughs of the conference. However, it does not require that countries phase them out, which is a major point of contention for environmental advocates. 
  • More than 130 countries committed to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. The 130 countries, which include Brazil, home to the Amazon Rainforest, possess 90% of the world’s forests. Deforestation has devastating effects on the climate, as forests are climate sinks that track carbon in the ground. 
  • The United States and United Kingdom led the creation of the Global Methane pledge, which signed on over 100 countries to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere, and cutting methane emissions is critical to radically reducing warming. 
  • The United States and China issued a joint pledge to work together to slow global warming. The United States and China are the two highest emitters of greenhouse gasses, and they said they would boost clean energy, combat deforestation and curb emissions of methane.
  • India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to cut India’s emissions to net zero by 2070, which was the first time the country of 1.3 billion people made a net-zero pledge. However, the pledge is 20 years later than the 2050 net-zero pledge made by most other countries at COP26. 
  • Countries at Glasgow pledged to set up climate finance mechanisms to help countries already suffering loss and damage due to the climate crisis. Talks urged developed countries to scale up climate finance, technology transfer and capacity-building, and to follow through on their pledge to help developing countries transition to greener economies and adapt to the climate crisis.
  • While the commitments made at the conference will move us forward in a more positive direction, the graph below shows how the commitments made are basically a drop in the bucket.
Small island countries are some of the most vulnerable areas to the effects of the climate crisis, and their entreaties took center stage at this year’s conference. The Alliance of Small Island States, which is a coalition of 39 countries, largely from the Caribbean and South Pacific, including Jamaica, Cuba, Fiji and Antigua and Barbuda, commanded discussions about the need for wealthy countries to provide more funding for developing countries to adapt, and to pay some form of “climate reparations.” They ultimately described being unheard by larger countries and said that COP26 failed to create an actionable plan to protect the islands.

As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, the United States has a gigantic role to play in the radical reduction of emissions necessary to control disastrous global warming. COP26 will only be a success if we all can work together to address climate change. Nature based solutions to climate change can and should be part of the proposed actions, as it provides upwards of 30% of the solution to tackling climate change.  Commitments to stop deforestation, restore land and water, and protect it from degradation are all commitments that have a direct impact on the Midwest and the Chicagoland region in addition to cutting methane and fossil fuel emissions.  Openlands is advocating for proposals like a new Civilian Conservation Corps included in the Build Back Better bill, America the Beautiful, and the REPLANT Act. You can help by reaching out to your senators and representatives to ensure these bills pass, and the US leads the way in tackling climate change.

Openlands and Partners Win $400,000 Walder Foundation Grant to Restore Beaubien Woods

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Beaubien Woods is part of the Forest Preserves of Cook County’s robust 70,000 acres of natural area in Cook County. A treasured ecosystem on Chicago’s South Side, it is home to a mix of prairie, woodland, and wetland habitats, including Flatfoot Lake. Beaubien Woods runs along the Little Calumet River, an environmentally significant waterway that connects Chicago to the Mississippi River for various wildlife, including birds, fish, and mussels. Along with its ecological value, the Calumet Region has a rich cultural heritage, including being home to historical stops along the Underground Railroad and the birthplace of environmental justice in Chicago. The preserve sits next to community and industry, and access to the river has historically been limited. 

Beaubien’s proximity to the Little Calumet makes it the perfect place to bring nature and people together. To make Beaubien Woods and the Little Calumet River more accessible to the public, Openlands recently received a grant from the Walder Foundation for $400,000 to restore open spaces along the Little Calumet River. The grant project is shared in partnership with the Forest Preserves of Cook County, the Field Museum, and local community organizations, including People for Community Recovery, We Keep You Rollin’ Bike and Wellness Group, the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project, Chicago’s Finest Marina, and the Golden Gate Homeowners Association. Along with prairie restoration and the removal of invasive plant species, the project will build a community gathering space near the Beaubien boat launch, similar to the five gathering spaces at the Burnham Wildlife Corridor. A curatorial committee of community groups led by the Field Museum will decide the winning designs. By creating a community-driven, artistically designed gathering space alongside the restored prairie and trails, the project aims to reconnect nearby neighborhoods with the abundant environmental and cultural assets on and along the river to develop stewardship for the sites.

The Beaubien Woods project restoration will span two years, beginning this fall with a controlled burn to promote native species. Throughout the winter, Openlands’ Arborist Apprentices will clear invasive brush and trees. Beginning in the spring of 2022, contractors and volunteers will plant seeds and plug plants, emphasizing pollinator-friendly native plants. At the end of the project, 20 acres of native prairie will be restored along the access road to Beaubien Woods boat launch and invasive species will be removed at the northern end of the trail from Carver Military Academy to Flatfoot Lake, making the trail more inviting and encouraging the growth of native oaks. The Field Museum is currently the restoration steward at Beaubien Woods and will continue holding volunteer restoration days. 

The second year of the grant will also include some restoration of native plants and thinning of invasive trees at the riverfront of Beaubien Woods near the historic Ton Farm, the site of an Underground Railroad safe house that is nearby Beaubien Woods to the west. This restoration will provide a riverfront open space that the community can enjoy. According to Laura Barghusen, Openlands Blueways Director, Beaubien was chosen as the site for the Walder Grant for several reasons, the foremost being its potential to connect people to nature. “There were opportunities and interest to do restoration, and we saw it as an anchor and an example of what could be done along the Little Calumet to improve biodiversity and water quality and to try to connect people more with the river,” Barghusen explained.

Restoring the prairie at Beaubien will have a domino effect on ecosystem recovery that will benefit the land and the water. Prairie restoration will increase the number of species in the preserve and improve water quality because the restoration will enhance the ability of the soil to absorb and filter stormwater before it goes into the river. Improving the ecosystem, especially along trails, will make it a more attractive destination for people to enjoy nature while cleaning air and water and protecting wildlife.

Save Chicago’s Healthy Ash Trees

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The City of Chicago should inoculate all healthy ash trees as a management tool to sustain the canopy as long as possible and spread-out removal costs of trees over the next few decades.

Tree conservation is economically and environmentally superior to tree removal. Chicago’s Bureau of Forestry (BOF) had successfully treated and preserved ash trees throughout the city since 2010 but hasn’t treated the ash trees since 2018. Since treatments last for three years, inoculations are now past due. In a 2013 paper, BOF shared that healthy ash trees do not present any inordinate risk to the public and make a substantial environmental contribution to Chicago’s tree canopy. Healthy trees should be maintained as long as possible to retain environmental benefits yet be removed and replaced as tree health degrades.

Urban ash conservation is less costly than removal, especially when the significant environmental and economic benefits of established trees are considered. The cost of inoculating an average size, healthy ash tree in Chicago is one-tenth of the cost of removing it.  Ash tree conservation can circumvent the substantial environmental impacts caused by deforestation of the urban landscape, as well as the documented public safety risks associated with standing dead ash trees and their removal. Many landowners continue to rationalize tree removal as the only viable management strategy for Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). This is based on erroneous beliefs that tree removal slows the spread of EAB, or that treatment is not effective, economical, or environmentally sound.

Losing healthy ash trees in Chicago will increase heat islands and its associated health risks, especially in older people. Tree loss from the spread of EAB is associated with increased human mortality according to the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Results suggest that loss of trees to the emerald ash borer increased human mortality related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness. This finding adds to the growing evidence that the natural environment provides major public health benefits.

With the net loss of 10,000 street trees every year for the last ten years, it is imperative that Chicago maintains the dwindling 16% tree canopy that currently exists for our health and the City’s bottom line. Current science supports conservation via treatment as a sensible and effective tool for managing healthy ash trees in urban settings. Openlands supports the request to restore funding for ash tree inoculations in the 2022 City of Chicago budget and applauds the efforts of the community groups, Save Your Ash, and Alderpersons for their strong advocacy to drive this forward.

Openlands’ Statement on the Obama Presidential Center and Tree Loss

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Many people felt strongly that there should not be winners or losers as the Obamas decided to build the Presidential Center in Jackson or Washington Park. At Openlands, we shared that sentiment, and still believe that today. For Openlands, winning embraced 5 principles: Minimize building in the parks, replace parkland taken with equal acreage in the nearby community, provide convenient public access to transportation, maximize synergies with the community and cultural institutions, and restore and revitalize the entire South Park. Collectively, these principles empower a bold vision for the south parks that drives restoration and realizes the needs of our diverse population.

Since the Obama Presidential Center announcement, Openlands has advocated for a thoughtful, comprehensive, and inclusive approach to planning – how development will affect the surrounding neighborhood, transportation solutions with CTA and Metra improvements, and the comprehensive restoration of the 1000+ acres of trees, lagoons, and recreational facilities that make up the south park system of Jackson, Washington, the Midway Plaisance, and South Shore Cultural Center.

The proposed project, along with the significant reconfiguration of roads within Jackson Park, triggered a federal review process under the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and other legal requirements. Importantly, the review process required public engagement and comment and seeks to surface alternative ideas that will avoid, minimize, and as a last resort, mitigate for impacts caused by the project. Openlands participated in every meeting and provided extensive comments, striving to get the agencies to see that reasonable alternatives to the proposed plans are viable. In the end, none of it mattered to the agencies and the projects were authorized essentially as originally proposed.

With development already beginning, many trees will be removed in the coming weeks. Openlands staff and leadership share the disappointment of tree advocates and TreeKeepers in the loss of this tree canopy. Currently, we are requesting that the Obama Foundation and Chicago Park District share their tree mitigation plan publicly if they have one. If they do not have a plan in place, Openlands is advocating they:

  1. Mitigate for tree loss by replacing removed trees with an inch-to-inch diameter replacement plan. For example, a 20-inch diameter tree removed would be replaced with 10 two-inch trees. These trees should be planted either on the site and/or to extend into the surrounding parkland and neighborhoods.
  2. Pay the dollar value per square inch cross section of trunk per tree removed (based on the International Society of Arboriculture’s Guide for Plant Appraisal, 8th or 10th Edition Model) to fund additional Chicago Park District tree planting and tree maintenance. This is a similar approach to that of the Forest Preserves of Cook County and the City of Chicago’s Bureau of Forestry.

We will continue to urge the Obama Foundation to value the ecological importance of trees and to avoid or minimize the impact of the Presidential Center’s development on existing trees.  We will further advocate that the Foundation mitigate for trees removed with the most up to date tools to evaluate and value those trees.

Photo Credit: Marc Monaghan, Hyde Park Herald

An Urgent Opportunity with America the Beautiful

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With the release of the newest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which states that a 1.5 C increase in global temperature is guaranteed to arrive within two decades, humans can no longer delay taking every step necessary to curb the worst effects of the climate crisis.

While the report offers a stark future, it comes on the heels of an urgent and opportunistic plan of action that the US must implement to avoid massive biodiversity loss and the grim future the IPCC report portrays.

In July 2021, the United Nations, through its Convention on Biological Diversity, announced its Global Framework for Managing Nature Through 2030; an evolving plan which provides the first international agreement on biodiversity loss, to guide actions worldwide to “preserve and protect nature and its essential services to people.”  Through this plan, the U.N. aims to stem and reverse ecological destruction across the globe, officially calling for the protection of at least 30 percent of the globe’s land and waters.

This call to action may sound familiar, as the United States is already acting on this directive through the America the Beautiful initiative. In it, the Biden Administration called everyone – local communities through to states and federal agencies – to meet the moment and conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.  Since that directive, an expansive process has begun to engage people, from agricultural and forest landowners, fishermen, tribes, local officials – emphasizing the need to listen and respond to those living in our most divested communities to identify where the greatest needs and opportunities are for conservation. 

This comes not a moment too soon. As the only conservation organization looking expansively at the tri-state metropolitan region, Openlands is committed to acting boldly to ensure our region not only participates in this initiative but leads.  As we move forward collaboratively, four priorities drive our work:

  1. Communities that experience divestment bear the brunt of this risk, living with more contamination, flooding and heat, more volatile working conditions, and a diminished quality of life, with less access to healthy open lands and waters. America the Beautiful must center these communities to ensure equity and a more just future. As Openlands works to restore areas along the Little Calumet River Area, we are working in lockstep with communities to amplify the nationally important cultural heritage and history through the African American Heritage Water Trail and imagine a future with more access and opportunity for recreation and enjoyment of the river, and its natural and economic benefits with the Little Calumet Conservation Action Plan.
  2. Lost biodiversity means more than the disappearance of iconic wildlife and beautiful places – it means putting our future food and water supplies at risk. Through the American the Beautiful initiative, conservation must partner with agricultural and farming communities to promote regenerative and organic farming practices (Cover crops, no till, etc.), nutrient reduction practices, and agricultural easements that will protect soil, animals and insects, and our food and water. Openlands’ work in partnership with the Farm Foundation is laying the foundation for the future of both agriculture and conservation.
  3. Protecting more land and water does not mean we sacrifice economic growth, in our region or any other part of the US. Instituting the adoption of compatible land use plans, bringing in conservation strategies to zoning and agency approvals and revamping regulations around resource protections can help fight climate change and build a more viable economic future for us all. Openlands is proud to be a stakeholder in Moving Will County, an initiative advocating to cluster freight in order to encourage business and at the same time preserve Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, centennial farms, and other natural resources in what is known as the Prairie Parklands.
  4. Finally, we must accelerate the speed and scale of conservation in our region, supporting work on the ground to protect and restore land and waterways. Restored prairies and woodlands sequester more carbon, soak up more rainwater, and clean our air and soil more effectively than degraded or unprotected areas. Ensuring our government agencies, non-profits, business, and residents have the tools and resources needed to properly care for the land is simple, effective, and essential. Our restoration work across the region demonstrates that bringing the land back to health increases biodiversity, reduces flood waters, and makes us more resilient to climate change.

With the American the Beautiful initiative, we can prevent a catastrophic chain reaction and create a healthier, more just, and prosperous world for future generations. For change to be meaningful, it starts with all of us. To join the effort, there are a few things you can do:

  1. Tell Congress how important the America the Beautiful initiative is to Northeastern Illinois and the surrounding region.
  2. Advocate that Congress pass the RENEW Conservation Corps Act and create a new Civilian Conservation Corps, which would provide over a million good-paying jobs to restore and maintain our open space, from urban parks and rivers to our prairies and wildlands. 
  3. Get involved with Openlands or numerous other conservation organizations, agencies, and groups that are actively advocating for and moving the America the Beautiful Initiative forward through land protection, restoration, forestry, and more.

For all of us to withstand adversity and spring back from devastating weather events that we’ve seen from California to Connecticut, we must immediately invest in conservation initiatives and infrastructure that are collaborative and inclusive, restore biodiversity, and empower a green economy with good-paying jobs in communities that need it most.

The time to act is now.

Space to Grow Celebrates Opening of New Schoolyard with Community Partners and Elected Officials Including Mayor Lori Lightfoot

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On Saturday, June 5, dignitaries including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Alderman Jason Irvin, Dr. Andrea Cheng, Chicago’s Acting Commissioner of Water, and MWRD Commissioner Kimberly du Blucet, joined members of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, architects from Studio Gang and Space to Grow partners to celebrate an amazing set of community resources that included the new Space to Grow schoolyard at Melody STEM elementary school in West Garfield Park.

So far, Space to Grow has opened 25 schoolyards across the city, with a focus on underinvested neighborhoods. Five more are under construction and will be completed this fall. “We look forward to working with our Space to Grow partners to bring more green schoolyards to communities across Chicago, “ said Gerald Adelmann, president and CEO of Openlands. 

Founded in 1963, Openlands protects the natural and open spaces of northeastern Illinois and the surrounding region to ensure cleaner air and water, protect natural habitats and wildlife, and help balance and enrich our lives.