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The Nature Conservancy in Illinois Illinois Contact Places We Protect Field Trips & Events Press Releases Volunteer Ways of Giving |
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The Nature Conservancy Applauds President’s Support for Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest Project in FY 2006 BudgetChicago, IL – The Nature Conservancy today applauded President Bush’s request to fund the Shawnee National Forest project with $1.5 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year 2006. The Shawnee National Forest project includes the Illinois Ozarks which stretch along the banks of the Mississippi River in Southern Illinois, representing one of the most extensive forested regions in the state. The Nature Conservancy works with the U.S. Forest Service in a Middle Mississippi River partnership, which includes preservation and restoration work in and around the Shawnee National Forest. “The Shawnee National Forest project is home to some of Illinois’ most biologically diverse habitat,” said Bruce Boyd, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Illinois chapter. “This funding will help ensure that this precious landscape will continue to thrive and provide numerous benefits to our local communities.” “Many species found here are rare and limited in distribution in Illinois. The area is characterized by steep bluffs, upland and bottomland forests, and hill prairies. Six biologically significant streams flow within this area,” Boyd said. Along with applauding the Bush administration for including funding for the Shawnee National Forest project in his budget, Boyd also commended Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), Congressman Jerry Costello (D-Belleville) and Congressman John Shimkus (R- Collinsville) for their longtime support of the Shawnee National Forest. Established by Congress in 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is one of the nation’s most successful conservation programs. It is the principal source of federal funding for additions to national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests and other public lands. The LWCF has been responsible for protecting some of America’s greatest national treasures, including the Great Sands Dunes National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and the Everglades. The Bush Administration’s LWCF budget request is part of the President’s budget request for the Department of the Interior and US Forest Service. The Shawnee National Forest is home to an estimated 1,200 plant species including 35 percent of all plant species in Illinois, 50 mammal species, 250 bird species, and 60 reptile and amphibian species. Rare species found in the area include the Indiana bat, green water snake, bluehead shines, banded pygmy sunfish, spotted sunfish and bantam sunfish. The area also supports seven federally listed threatened and endangered species, in addition to 33 species that are considered regionally sensitive. The Conservancy has identified the major threats to the area to be forest fragmentation and the lack of fire. Fragmentation opens the forest interior to forest edges, which allow animal communities that normally would not live within the interior to now penetrate those forest tracts. The result is higher predator infiltration on the interior communities. Because of these ‘edge’ effects, five acres of forest benefit for every one acre of land protected. The lack of natural fire regime is a threat to the extensive oak-hickory forests. It’s predicted that a conversion to a beech-maple forest in the next few decades will happen in the absence of large-scale forest management. Problems will result, as most species of forest-dwelling animals are dependent on food resources associated with oaks and hickories.
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