Natural Areas

The Foundation awarded a Natural Areas Land Acquisition grant to the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation (JDCF) to help the organization and its partners to acquire 40 acres of natural habitat in order to complete the protection of Horseshoe Mound just east of the City of Galena. The organization worked with two other not-for-profit groups, one locally-based—Natural Land Institute—and one national level organization—The Conservation Fund, to complete the project. Rising 240 feet above the surrounding landscape, Horseshoe Mound is the largest, most unique geological feature in the northwest corner of the state. The top of the mound, which was protected by this project, provides an amazing panoramic view, reaching all the way to mounds to the west in Iowa and to the north in Wisconsin. The oak savanna, grassland and wetland on the property connect with other previously protected areas to form a larger site. A Foundation grant of $200,000 helped to leverage $300,000 of other funds from another foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the acquisition of this important natural area helped the JDCF to kick off the Rivers-to-Ridges campaign promoting outdoor recreation sites in three northwest Illinois counties.

What’s next for this project? The JDCF is beginning its work with Natural Land Institute, another not-for-profit land trust, who owns an easement to protect an Illinois Natural Areas Inventory site on the side of the mound to restore and manage a 75 acre oak savanna across the entire Horseshoe Mound. With a subsequent grant from the Foundation, the JDCF is working on acquiring and protecting an adjacent natural area called the Galena Gateway Park. The acquisition of this land, which sits at the entryway into the town of Galena and provides the first view of the town as seen when rounding Horseshoe Mound along US Highway 20, will allow JDCF and its partners to create an even larger complex of protected areas connected from the top of Horseshoe Mound down to the Galena River. The JDCF will enroll these two spectacular natural areas along with two others protected with previous Foundation grants—the Casper Bluff Land & Water Reserve and the Wapello Land & Water Reserve—as part of the Rivers to Ridges outdoor recreation program created to promote the network of lands providing recreational opportunities in northwestern Illinois.

The Foundation made a grant to ParkLands Foundation, a non-profit land trust, to help further its Mackinaw River Corridor Project in McLean and Woodford Counties in central Illinois by purchasing the 77 acre Sweeney tract, which the organization is now in the process of reforesting. The Foundation’s grant was applied towards the direct purchase of the land only. The Sweeney property is connected to four other forested properties owned by ParkLands Foundation along the Mackinaw River. The purchase and restoration of the Sweeney tract will form a continuous habitat block of 115 acres and protect 0.61 miles of the river.

 What is next for this project? The group is busy with planting the first set in what will eventually total over 40,000 trees on the property. This summer at the request of ParkLands Foundation, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources did their first mussel and fish survey in this stretch of the river and found a diverse set of species, including the state threatened slippershell mussel. Besides connecting to and expanding forest along the Mackinaw, the purchase of the Sweeney tract will allow Parklands to create another public access point to the river to connect with two downstream sites in Woodford County. The group is in the middle of planning for the construction of this new canoe launch – while many canoeists use the Mackinaw, there is no developed canoe launch along the McLean County stretch of the river. ParkLands is parternering with the Mackinaw River Canoe Club to help with completing the engineering work, acquiring the needed permits, and constructing the launch. A grant to this exciting acquisition project leveraged funding by a new private donor to ParkLands Foundation to cover most of the costs of constructing the canoe launch.

The Foundation awarded a grant to Illinois Audubon Society to work with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in purchasing a 331-acre property in Pope County to create the Big Grand Pierre Creek Land and Water Reserve. The land supports three forest types and a very high quality creek and, until its purchase in January of 2006, it was a private in-holding surrounded by the Shawnee National Forest. The Foundation grant supported the purchase of the wooded portions of the parcel, which added up to 222 acres. Illinois Audubon Society subsequently sold the portion of the property it purchased to the state agency in April of 2007 for the creation of a state natural area. The IDNR had purchased the remaining 109 acres which was primarily made up of pasture directly from the landowner and, after obtaining ownership of the entire property, successfully applied to the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission to register the 331-acre site as a Land and Water Reserve. The state-owned natural area protects three Illinois Natural Areas Inventory sites and several state endangered species.

What happened after the Foundation’s grant ended? After selling the 222 acres to the state of Illinois, the Illinois Audubon Society was able to purchase yet another ecologically significant parcel in southern Illinois – the 303 acre Johnson County tract of upland, bottomland and cypress swamp along Upper Cache River.

The Foundation helped Great Rivers Land Trust (GRLT) to purchase the “crown jewel” property, now known as the Palisades Preserve, of a natural areas corridor running along the Great River Road between Alton and Pere Marquette State Park. With its 430 acres of oak-hickory forest and 150 ft limestone bluffs, the property contains land listed on the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory site and is recognized in the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan for the quality of its upland forest habitat and ranked a high priority for conservation. The Palisades Preserve lies at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and just north of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. It is bounded to the north and south by other permanently protected lands and provides critical connections among parcels owned and protected by GRLT, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Principia College, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and The Nature Institute. The purchase of this important natural area has created a contiguous 10,000-acre macro-site of protected lands.

What’s next for this project? A team led by the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center is actively managing the property. After successfully applying for dedication of the 430-acre preserve as an Illinois Nature Preserve, GRLT transferred the Palisades Preserve to Lewis & Clark Community College for ownership and management. Undergraduates at the community college as well as students and faculty of the Great Rivers Research Center will be able to conduct research on the natural area. A year later, the Foundation helped the organization increase land protection in this part of the state even further by making a $300,000 grant to help it purchase 353 acres of forested bluffs and ridge-top prairie adjacent to the Palisades Preserve which will help to expand and buffer the very important preserve.