Wildlife Habitat Fact Sheet Click on image to read or download

Healthy land makes for healthier, cleaner water! Wetlands, forests, and prairies help control flooding, filter pollution, prevent sediment from being washed downstream, and provide critical habitat for our state’s wildlife.

Prairie Rivers Network’s habitat specialist, Elliot Brinkman, works with private landowners, public land agencies, land trusts, and others to expand and connect the patchwork of natural lands and habitats across the state. The majority of Illinois’ wildlands are located along rivers and streams.

Prairie Rivers Network has actively worked with conservation partners to develop wildlife habitat management plans for portions of the Mississippi and Vermilion River watersheds. These plans reflect the shared goals and priorities of agencies and organizations in each area, and acts as a tool for reaching state conservation targets outlined in the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan. Through this work, we have recognized the need to promote conservation and responsible practices on private lands.

Ninety percent of land in Illinois is privately owned, which means that private lands conservation is critically important for clean water and habitat preservation.

Supported by a recent grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation, Prairie Rivers Network will draw on the best land conservation measures from across the country to craft policy-based solutions for Illinois.

Emiquon Ramsar Site (Photo: The Nature Conservancy)

Since Europeans first settled in Illinois, changes in land use and development destroyed 90 percent of the state’s wetlands. Protecting and restoring those that remain has been a high priority for all who cherish clean water and quality wildlife habitat. In June, two such efforts, the Dixon Waterfowl Refuge and the Emiquon Complex (which includes Emiquon Preserve and Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge), were honored by being designated “wetlands of international importance” by the Ramsar Convention. {Continue Reading »}

The U.S. Congress voted 52-47 in favor of relinking conservation compliance to crop insurance in the next Farm Bill! This is a huge victory, and we are grateful that Illinois Senator Dick Durbin voted in favor of the amendment. We are also grateful to those of you who responded to our call-to-action and contacted your Senators to support the amendment.

If the House version of the Farm Bill also supports conservation compliance,  farmers who receive crop insurance subsidies will have to control erosion and conserve wetlands. We think that’s more than a fair deal in exchange for the billions of taxpayer dollars that subsidize crop insurance premiums each year.

What’s next? The Senate may vote on the entire Farm Bill later this week, and then the House Agriculture Committee will draft their version of the Farm Bill after the Fourth of July recess. Illinois has three Congressman on the House Agriculture Committee: Hultgren, Johnson, and Schilling. Therefore, we will be calling on you in the near future to contact these legislators and urge their support for conservation compliance in the House Farm Bill.

Here is a suggested letter (please tailor as you see fit).

Dear Senator ___:

As the Senate debates the Farm Bill this week, I urge you to support the Cardin Amendment on Conservation Compliance (SA-2219), which re-attaches important conservation requirements to crop insurance subsidies as was the case prior to 1996.

Taxpayers have supported a safety net for farmers for nearly 30 years, in return for a guarantee that subsidized farmers will follow basic conservation practices in their fields. This Conservation Compliance compact has worked to ensure a secure food system while also ensuring that critical conservation practices are in place to limit soil erosion on highly erodible land and prevent destruction of wetlands. However, crop insurance is a highly subsidized and popular program that is not subject to Conservation Compliance.

Conservation Compliance is not regulation, it is an eligibility requirement to receive taxpayer-funded support and does not threaten a farmer’s ability to get crop insurance. Compliance requirements are not new — most farmers are already meeting these requirements through the use of basic conservation practices such as no-till on highly erodible land in order to receive commodity and conservation subsidy payments. Farmers found to be out of compliance have a year to return to compliance before losing their subsidies, and farmers who suffer a weather-related disaster do not risk losing their insurance subsidy as long as they have been implementing their conservation plan and refraining from draining wetlands.

Re-establishing the link between insurance premium subsidies and Conservation Compliance is especially important as Congress considers eliminating direct payments, the major subsidy program that is currently linked to Compliance, and moving some of the savings to support substantially increased subsidies for crop insurance, which lacks Compliance requirements. Unless you help reconnect crop insurance subsidies to Conservation Compliance, a significant part of a farmer’s incentive to follow conservation plans will disappear this year.

Connecting eligibility for crop insurance subsidies to Conservation Compliance will ultimately save taxpayers money, result in more productive farmland, and ensure federal subsidies align with the public’s interest in basic conservation of our soil and water. Please not only vote for the Cardin Amendment, but encourage other Senators to do the same.

Sincerely,

[your name]

Please contact LaSalle County Board members and tell them to protect Starved Rock by not permitting the sand mine.

If you have time for just one call, the board chair is Jerry Hicks, 815-795-2608.

A proposed sand mine adjacent to Starved Rock State Park could drain a rare, brackish wetland, with high quality plant communities and specific habitat for threatened and endangered species. The noise generated from blasting and constant truck traffic will have a negative impact on the wildlife populations that inhabit the area.

Starved Rock State Park receives over 2 million visitors annually; many of whom come to view the abundant wildlife that occur in the area, such as the bald eagles that overwinter there and the white pelicans that migrate to the Illinois Valley in spring and fall.

It’s not too late to let members of the LaSalle County Board know that you oppose locating this mine near Starved Rock. Please take the time to call board members and voice your concern.

In December, the LaSalle County Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously in favor of the Permit. However, the proposal will go before the full LaSalle County Board on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 for a final vote.

Please contact the County Board Members or attend the County Board Meeting in support of Starved Rock State Park.

When: Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 1 PM

Where: Knights of Columbus Hall at 401 W. Main Street in Ottawa, Illinois

Prairie Rivers Network and Partners Press Obama Administration for Better Water Resource Planning

U.S. Army Engineers open the Morganza Spillway , Morganza, MS, to relieve pressure on the flood waters of the Mississippi River, on Saturday, May 15, 2011. Source: flickr/US Army Corp of Engineers Photo.

The 2011 floods and their aftermath will be a fact of life for many in the months and years to come. At this time, residents along the Missouri River are building additional levees or adding height to current levees in the hopes of avoiding floods from record high river levels. Floodgates of the Morganza and Bonne Carre spillways on the Mississippi River remain open almost a month after they were raised to lessen downstream flooding. In the last week, the Corps’ estimates of the cost to rebuild levees damaged by the Mississippi floods has increased from $1 to $2 billion dollars, and will certainly increase as more damage information becomes available. Clearly, it is past time for rethinking how we manage and live with the Big River.

Rethinking needs to begin with the White House and the US Army Corps of Engineers. In a letter to President Obama, sent June 21, 2011, Prairie Rivers Network and 44 other organizations are urging the Administration to revise the current federal water resources planning principles and guidelines (P & G) to ensure federal funds used for water resource management and project planning “protect and restore the natural flood fighting defenses of the nation’s river and wetlands.” {Continue Reading »}