Many voices, one wilderness : collaborative conservation in the greater Chicago region

Abstract

There has been a growing recognition in the conservation community that landscape-scale networks of preserves and habitat corridors are needed to adequately protect native biodiversity. While most of the efforts to protect land on this scale have occurred in rural environments dominated by resource lands, an increasing number of efforts are occurring in urban environments. These locales are characterized by biological and political fragmentation that complicate landscape-scale conservation. Chicago Wilderness, a voluntary network of 262 conservation organizations operating in the greater Chicago region, is one group undertaking this work. I use Chicago Wilderness as a case study to explore how voluntary conservation coalitions convince their membership to both adopt and implement regional conservation plans. I identify a number of barriers that prevent coalition members from collaborating and make the work of protecting biodiversity difficult; these include limiting factors like inter-organizational trust, funding, access to information, staff capacity, and political climate. Chicago Wilderness has sought to overcome these barriers by adopting strategies that prioritize information sharing, technical assistance, and relationship building, and that increase public involvement with biodiversity protection. I argue that Chicago Wilderness' mixed success across the region has been closely tied to the conservation strategies that it implicitly promotes. The coalition has been most successful in areas that are accepting of top-down, government-led conservation solutions like direct acquisition and land use regulation. The coalition has been less successful in areas-most often at the edge of the metropolitan area-where citizens and political officials value private property rights and limited government intervention. I conclude with suggestions on how Chicago Wilderness can increase its effectiveness and further promote biodiversity protection across the region.