How We Got Here

In 2001, Congress authorized the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program and the State Wildlife Grant Program. These programs were established to improve wildlife habitat stewardship and management with the goal of reducing the number of species requiring listing as threatened or endangered.   Lets get some acronyms out of the way.
USFWS - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • serves as the lead agency to manage these programs nationwide. USFWS mandates that the governing focus be wildlife species in greatest need of conservation (SGNC)
  • requires all states to develop and maintain ten-year wildlife management plans. 
IL WAP - Illinois Comprehensive Wildlife Conseration Plan
  • Identified 31 Conservation Opportunity Areas (COA's) within the state.
  • These areas have special importance for conserving SGNC and for preserving specific natural communities.
  • We were fortunate to have three separate COAs in or about Ogle and Lee counties: Rock River COA; Nachusa COA; and Green River Lowlands COA.
Land managers and volunteers from the three designated COA's were familiar with each other and had partnered on a few projects.  Therefore, with IDNR approval, the COA's merged into the Middle Rock River Conservation Partners. MRRCP began restoring woodlands, wetlands, prairies, seeps, savannas and more in Lee and Ogle counties. Our partnership grew into a prescribed fire crew, stewardship work days scheduled on sites within the COAs, volunteer training seminars, sharing labor and equipment, and educational programming.