Restoring Habitats & Conserving Wildlife

Helping Wild Places One Acre (or Animal) at a Time

The Forest Preserve District encompasses nearly 26,000 acres of prairies, woods and wetlands that are home to more than 5,000 species of native plants and animals.

Over the centuries, most of this land has gone from untouched natural habitat to farmland to abandoned fields overcome with invasive nonnative plants. But over the past few decades the Forest Preserve District has been working to bring a bit of a natural history back to thousands of acres of these areas to provide better homes for native plants and animals and for fuller, more scenic outdoor experiences for forest preserve visitors.

In some cases, the Forest Preserve District also works to help wildlife listed as either threatened or endangered.