The Volunteer Stewardship Network Celebrates 25 Years

  A volunteer collects seed at Nachusa Grasslands.

 

Tom Mitchell, a volunteer at Nachusa Grasslands Preserve, collects seeds that will be used in future plantings.

Photo © Ann E. Cutting

 

Become a Volunteer

Want to learn how to tell invasive garlic mustard from native toothwort? Interested in putting your love of birding to work for science?

Contact Karen Tharp at (618) 634-2524 or ktharp@tnc.org for more information about volunteer opportunities offered by The Nature Conservancy and its partners.
 


On a warm summer night along the sandy shores of Lake Michigan a few miles north of Chicago, Don Wilson sits in the grass and listens. He has to work fast to keep up with the calls of the marsh birds. For three straight hours, he identifies each bird species by its call and keeps count in a notebook. By 9 p.m., the frogs begin calling, their throaty warbles filling the air. Don starts anew, separating the shrill click of the Western chorus frog from the deep grumble of the American bullfrog. By midnight, he calls it a day.

Don’s notes aren’t an eccentric whimsy—he’s collecting hard data that gets assimilated into larger scientific counts of frogs and birds. This data—largely compiled by trained volunteers—is some of the best information scientists have to determine how human activity has changed nature, and how conservation can help protect and preserve countless animal populations.

Don spends about eight hours each month counting birds, dragonflies and frogs. Although he sees this as a rewarding opportunity to help nature, he admits, “I do it because it’s fun.” He is just one of thousands of volunteers in Illinois keeping a finger on the pulse of the natural world.  

The Beginning of the Volunteer Stewardship Network

It all began 25 years ago in the midst of a state budget crisis. It was 1983, and the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission had lost much of its funding. Staff was no longer able to provide the necessary monitoring and management of the natural areas under its care. The Nature Conservancy stepped in, mobilizing volunteers across Illinois, identifying lands in need of protection and matching them with volunteers.

Since then, 74 volunteer groups in 42 counties have joined to form the Volunteer Stewardship Network, an association of environmental volunteer groups that share information on land management across the state. 

The VSN Today

Karen Tharp, who has been coordinating the VSN program for the last six years, is a kind of hub for the thousands of volunteers who make up the VSN. She facilitates an e-mail listserve that addresses topics like monitoring techniques, volunteer recruitment and the status of plant and animal species at different preserves statewide. She also oversees the VSN’s grants, which are awarded to volunteer groups who work on public lands, allowing them to purchase tools such as chainsaws or fire equipment, and provides funding for needs like newsletters and educational programs. Funding from the VSN can free up dollars that can then be used toward land management or acquisition.

If you’ve gone hiking, fishing or birding in Illinois, chances are you’ve reaped the benefits of these volunteers’ work. Volunteers harvest and plant native seeds at Coneflower Hill Prairie in central Illinois, develop walking trails overlooking the Mississippi Bottoms on the Salt Lick Point Land and Water Reserve in southern Illinois and remove invasive plants in the Dan Ryan Woods southwest of Chicago.

Karen offers some awe-inspiring figures. Even with only about half the volunteer groups reporting hours for 2008, nearly 71,000 hours were volunteered in Illinois—that’s about $1.5 million worth of work in Illinois’ best natural places.

“We Do What We Can to Help.”

Jane Balaban is one of those volunteers who has a hard time counting just how many hours she’s put in. Her expertise and dedication underscore the role volunteers play in nature. Balaban first got involved with the North Branch Forest Preserve in northeastern Illinois in 1980, and has gone on to lead volunteer work days, conduct plant inventories and take lush photographs of the local flora and fauna for various Web sites.

Jane says that although she’s witnessed how the land has been wounded by fragmentation, she’s surprised by how resilient nature is. “Living in a way that the rest of nature can thrive alongside people—that’s a mark of a high society. We do what we can to help.”