Conservancy Applauds Congressional Appropriations Bill for Shawnee National Forest

CHICAGO, Illinois—December 27, 2007—The Nature Conservancy today applauded Senator Richard Durbin’s (D-IL) support for the FY’08 Interior Appropriations Bill that will fund the Shawnee National Forest with $850,000. This funding will enable the U.S. Forest Service to acquire land within the purchase boundaries of the forest.

The Shawnee National Forest is the largest publicly owned body of land in the state, but less than one-third of the acreage within its authorized boundaries is national forest system land.

“The Shawnee National Forest is home to some of Illinois’ most critical habitat,” said Leslee Spraggins, state director of The Nature Conservancy in Illinois. The Conservancy in Illinois is working to preserve 200,000 acres of the forest in the Ozarks region. “This funding will help ensure that this precious landscape will continue to thrive and provide numerous benefits to local communities,” said Spraggins. The area represents a geographic convergence of eastern, western, northern and southern habitat types and is one of the most biologically diverse sites in Illinois. It supports 43 state and seven federally listed and endangered species, in addition to significant populations of many other native plant and animal species in Illinois. This important habitat is threatened by forest fragmentation.

“Scientists estimate that these forests harbor as many as 1 million individual birds, representing a significant breeding population of migratory songbirds, including tanagers, flycatchers and warblers,” said Mike Baltz, The Nature Conservancy’s Southern Illinois project director. “Our goal is to reduce the fragmentation of the forest making the Shawnee a safe haven for migrant songbirds.”

Fragmentation of the forest affects migratory songbirds that breed in the region by allowing more predators into the forest interior.

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.