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Prairies And Savannas Campaign

Illinois Prairies and Savannas

This Campaign strives to recreate Illinois’ roadmap for landscape-level conservation, restoration, and preservation efforts for grassland, shrubland, and savanna habitats and corresponding native species. Illinois has lost 99.9% of its high-quality native prairie. The future of many Native Species in Illinois that depend on these prairies rely on the preservation of the little native prairie that remains and the creation and continued management of restored habitats across the landscape.

Objectives

  • Protect both native remnant and recovered habitats and their corresponding native flora and fauna through strategic land acquisition, conservation easements, and Natural Areas designation, and through active management
  • Create, enhance, and recover Prairie, shrubland, and Savanna Natural Communities through direct land conversion using appropriate management tools and techniques
  • Evaluate current and develop new outreach and training materials and avenues of messaging, to better inform and guide internal staff, partners, the public, and private contractors on the importance, and the restoration and protection, of Natural Communities included within the Campaign and the species that depend upon them
  • Restore, enhance, and recover flora, fauna, and Natural Communities included in the Campaign to spatial extents and qualities that assure their viability and ecological value in the future.
  • Continue and initiate research investigations aimed at evaluating threats to and potential causes of Campaign specific floral and faunal declines, developing strategies to help reverse these trends
  • Establish an in-state, grasslands-focused working group, that includes representatives from a broad subset of stakeholder groups, including but not limited to state and federal agencies, non-government conservation organizations, municipalities, universities, agriculture groups, and community members, to help identify conservation needs and guide conservation efforts across the state
  • Develop and implement an approach for landuse planning and management that prioritizes the benefits of Prairie and Savanna Natural Communities within the context of economic and recreational endeavors as well as human health.