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Illinois Natural Areas Inventory Update

The INAI is a record of high quality forests, prairies, wetlands, and other significant natural features first conducted in the mid-1970s for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR).  It was a three-year project conducted by the University of Illinois that identified 1,089 sites as natural areas. These 1,089 sites covered 25,723 acres, which represents only 0.07% of all the land area of Illinois. While the list of INAI sites has been maintained by IDNR since the first inventory was conducted 30 years ago, many changes have occurred.  Some INAI sites have been destroyed and others added.

Through funding provided by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Grand Victoria Foundation, Illinois Clean Energy Foundation, and the Association of Illinois Forest and Conservation Districts, an update of the INAI is underway.  The INAI Update includes two separate sets of statewide assessments and surveys:

• A systematic search for new high quality terrestrial natural communities, where to date, 108 new sites are being proposed for addition to the INAI; it is estimated that twice that number or more could be identified in total, perhaps as many as 230-250.
• An assessment of all existing high quality natural areas to determine their current status, with 322 of the 455 sites evaluated thus far, having increased or retained their quality, while 58 communities decreased slightly, and 65 decreased significantly.

Illinois Sustainable Natural Areas Vision

The Illinois Sustainable Natural Areas Vision (SNAV) is the corollary to the Illinois Natural Areas Plan written in 1980 following the completion of the first INAI. The primary goal of this first plan was to protect existing INAI sites and manage them to sustain them into the future. Given the many challenges facing natural areas today – invasive species, degradation and fragmentation, urban/suburban development and the most daunting – climate change, SNAV goes beyond this first plan. The primary goal of SNAV is to set forth a workable, implementable framework for creating a sustainable, connected system of natural areas.  In the short term, efforts will be made to protect natural areas as they exist today, encompassing all the current ecological functions and biodiversity of these sites. In the long-term, however, efforts will be needed to create larger, resilient, connected systems that may adapt to changing environmental conditions, even if that means changes in ecological function and biodiversity.  Secondary goals include the identification of the potential roles of all stakeholders in this effort, and to consider the many challenges and opportunities that exist in protecting natural areas and creating sustainability.

A central theme has emerged in developing the Sustainable Vision – the need for a new paradigm – “the conservation of connectivity”, where we work to connect natural areas with their surrounding landscapes, connect conservation organizations and agencies to become an energized and effective force in sustaining natural areas, and (re-)connecting people with the land.  This emphasis on connectivity is vital to the future of natural areas.

Download the final report (5 MB pdf) for the Illinois Sustainable Natural Areas Vision (SNAV). Best viewed in Adobe Reader. Navigate the document's Table of Contents by choosing the bookmarks icon (on left edge) or from the menu, View => Navigation Panels => Bookmarks.