I donate to The Nature Conservancy. When you give to a big national group, it’s easy to picture your money going somewhere far away, like a rainforest or a coral reef. Those places matter, but I was happy to see that some of that work is happening right here in the Midwest.
Two preserves caught my eye: Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois and the Edge of Appalachia Preserve System in Ohio. I haven’t visited either one yet. I still like knowing they’re out there, holding on to the kinds of land and wildlife the Midwest used to have a lot more of.
The Midwest Isn’t Just Cornfields#
When people drive across the Midwest, they mostly see corn, soybeans, and the occasional water tower. That’s not what the land looked like before plows. Illinois calls itself the Prairie State, and before settlers arrived, prairie covered most of it. Today almost all of that original tallgrass prairie is gone, turned into farmland, towns, and highways.
I’m not knocking farming. The Midwest feeds a lot of people. But once a prairie or an old forest is gone, you can’t just plant it back in a season. It takes decades of work, the right seeds, fire, and a lot of patience. That’s why the places that still have the pieces are worth protecting.
Nachusa Grasslands: Bison Back in Illinois#
Nachusa Grasslands sits near Franklin Grove in Lee and Ogle counties in north-central Illinois. It started with a couple of prairie enthusiasts, Dot and Doug Wade, who saw the site’s potential in the 1970s. The Nature Conservancy bought its first small parcels at auction in 1985, and by the end of 1986 it owned 397 acres. That makes 2026 the preserve’s 40th anniversary.
Today it covers about 4,100 acres of remnant prairie, woodlands, and wetlands, and it’s one of the largest and most diverse grasslands in Illinois. Here’s what’s living there:
- More than 700 native plant species
- 245 bird species
- Rare species like the federally endangered rusty patched bumble bee, the Blanding’s turtle, and the regal fritillary butterfly
The headliner, though, is the bison. In 2014, bison came back to Nachusa, and they now roam about 1,500 fenced acres. Bison grazing is part of how a prairie is supposed to work. They eat the grasses, which leaves room for wildflowers, and their wallows create little pockets of different habitat. Calves are usually born from March to mid-May.
What really impressed me is how much of this runs on volunteers. People have put in more than 200,000 volunteer hours there, collecting seed by the thousands of pounds, pulling invasive plants, fixing wetlands, and helping with controlled burns. Friends of Nachusa Grasslands, founded in 2008, organizes workdays on most Thursdays and Saturdays. That’s a lot of neighbors giving up their weekends for a prairie.
Edge of Appalachia: Where the Mountains Meet the Midwest#
The Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System is in Adams County in southern Ohio, about 75 miles east of downtown Cincinnati, right where the Appalachian foothills begin. It’s around 20,000 acres, which makes it Ohio’s largest privately owned natural area. The Nature Conservancy and the Cincinnati Museum Center own and manage it together.
The history goes back a long way. Geologist John Locke noted how unusual the area was in 1838. In the 1920s, ecologist Dr. E. Lucy Braun studied its prairie openings, and her study area, Lynx Prairie, became The Nature Conservancy’s first preserve in Ohio. Local conservation-minded people started working to protect the land in 1959, with Braun guiding them.
Because it sits where different regions meet, the preserve packs in hardwood forests, dry limestone prairies, dolomite cliffs, rocky streams, and waterfalls. More than 100 rare plant and animal species live there, including the endangered Indiana bat, green salamander, and Allegheny woodrat. Eastern box turtles and northern bobwhite quail are there too.
There’s also a bigger plan. The Sunshine Corridor Project aims to connect the preserve to Shawnee State Forest, which would create the largest connected protected forest in Ohio. That kind of corridor gives wildlife room to move instead of being stuck on islands of habitat surrounded by roads and development.
Why This Is Where I Want My Money to Go#
Donating can feel abstract. You send a check and hope it does some good. Reading about Nachusa and Edge of Appalachia made it more concrete for me. I can point to a map and say that bison graze in Illinois again and that a 20,000-acre forest in Ohio is staying a forest.
It also matters that these places are close to home. The Midwest’s natural systems are easy to overlook because they aren’t as dramatic as mountains or oceans. A prairie doesn’t look like much from the highway at 70 miles per hour. But it’s a whole system of grasses, flowers, insects, birds, and animals that took thousands of years to develop. Keeping a variety of those systems around, from prairies and wetlands to Appalachian forests, means the Midwest stays more than one big field.
On My List to Visit#
Both preserves are open to the public from sunrise to sunset, and both have trails. Nachusa has five hiking trails and a visitor center, but you can’t hike inside the fenced bison area, and dogs aren’t allowed. Edge of Appalachia has about 27 miles of trails, including the 4.4-mile loop to the Buzzardroost Rock overlook and the 1.3-mile Lynx Prairie loop. Bring water, because there’s none on site, and don’t count on cell service.
Seeing bison in Illinois and standing on Buzzardroost Rock are both on my list now. Until then, I’m glad part of what I give is keeping these places wild.
Sources: The Nature Conservancy: Nachusa Grasslands, Friends of Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy: Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Cincinnati Museum Center: Edge of Appalachia.
