Prairie State Conservation Coalition stepping up to fund land projections

While waiting for our van to fill with young men from our oldest son's robotics group, maybe 17 years ago, I marveled at how much prickly pear grew in the yards of Pembroke Township.

Pembroke, in southeastern Kankakee County, is one of the nation's poorest townships, but it's rich in rare and unusual wild things.

As I worked on this column a photo came of a state-endangered orange fringed orchid or yellow fringed orchid (Platanthera ciliaris) from Carl N. Becker Savanna Nature Preserve, a rich place to see in southeastern Kankakee County.

Good fortune sometimes helps conservation, but generally conservation builds its own good fortune by deliberate buys of land with rich habitat.

It takes money.

Good news is a prime stream of revenue for land purchase and management is being passed on. As the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation winds down, it gave a $42 million grant to the Prairie State Conservation Coalition.

The ICECF was established in 1999 with a $225 million endowment from Commonwealth Edison with a mission to "to improve energy efficiency, advance the development and use of renewable energy resources, and protect natural areas and wildlife habitat in communities all across Illinois."

The ICECF stopped accepting new applications last year. That's where PSCC mattered.

The PSCC was established in 2005 by the Conservation Land Trust community with an all-volunteer board of directors. It added its first full-time executive director in Cynthia Kanner last year and moved into a much bigger role with the ICECF grant.

Kanner expects to follow a similar path in offering grants.

The grants will go to "501(c)3 organizations and local government agencies for the preservation and enhancement of natural areas and wildlife habitats in Illinois." PSCC grants will be used for land acquisition, land stewardship and organization capacity building (think organizational infrastructure).

Another important part will be "to help grow land conservation organizations led by Black, Indigenous, People of Color." That includes supporting BIPOC-led land conservation organizations (there aren't many) and "helping traditional organizations grow their BIPOC programs and diversify their boards, staff and programming."

"That kind of work takes time," Kanner noted. "Everyone will reap the benefits of being included and working on conservation from all sorts of angles. Conservation is this big umbrella."

PSCC aims to grow its grant into a $100 million fund, hopefully dispersing some $2 or $3 million annually.

"Absolutely, that's a big goal," Kanner said.

The plan is to start receiving requests for funds for land acquisition by "this time next year" with everything running by January 2026.

Kanner envisions following ICECF grants for such places as the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve in Monroe County. That's a project of CLIFFTOP (Conserving Lands In Farm, Forest, Talus, Or Prairie). CLIFFTOP, founded in 2006, has a "mission is to promote the conservation, preservation, and protection of the Mississippi River bluffs corridor in Monroe, Randolph and St. Clair Counties."

ICECF grants went to help with places such as the Carl Becker NP.

"Grants have helped support the Pembroke Heritage Trails and Trees initiative to restore, create, and network existing trails, landscapes, and historic corridors in our disadvantaged community," said Johari Cole-Kweli, president/managing director of the Community Development Corporation of Pembroke-Hopkins Park in a prepared quote. "We are pleased to know that Prairie State Conservation Coalition will continue the important grant program of the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation and include a focus to conserve lands in diverse communities statewide.”

Cole-Kweli led the robotics club our oldest son belonged to 17 years ago and we now sit on the same Illinois Extension Council (Will, Kankakee, Grundy counties).

For PSCC, David Holman does an annual Illinois land report, "Everyone's Bible," as Kanner put it, of acres saved and projects. He has done it since 2015 and it shows the private sector stepping up for land acquisition more than the public side. His "Year in Review" for last year is the 2023-Year-in-Review.pdf, found at prairiestateconservation.org.

When I asked Kanner her favorite natural area or wild space in Illinois, she first said the Driftless Area near Galena.

"If people went to these places, they would shocked they are in Illinois," she said. "There's the old growth forest on the Mississippi Bluffs. Then there is an opening area and a prairie in full bloom. It is magical.

"Or the southern areas, the Cache River with its cypress trees."

Then she couldn't stop herself, "I love water. I love Illinois Beach State Park. There are places in Illinois that have dunes in the middle of the state."