News & Noteworthy Painting the Future Through Conservation Congratulations to Ed Collins On His Retirement Picture this: It is 1986, and a young Ranger in his late twenties stands atop one of the last remaining kames in Glacial Park Conservation Area. It has rained for several days straight and the area is facing one of the most severe flooding events it has seen in years. The Ranger is hoping from this height he might be able to see and later retrieve lost picnic tables that were swept away in the floods. From this vantage point atop the kame, he finds something he wasn’t looking for. He realizes he can make out the old meanders of Nippersink Creek, prior to it being channelized in the 1950s. The flood waters fill in the landscape, drawing a map of the creek’s history and showing the Ranger what it remembers and what it wants to become again. t would take the young man over a decade to get to the go on to present these ideas at a Chicago Wilderness Ipoint in his career where he could begin developing Conference, and eventually it evolved into the District’s a plan to de-channelize the creek and restore the 昀椀rst comprehensive land protection plan. “But the 昀椀rst surrounding wetlands. It took another fourteen years version of it was produced in an old hog shed in 1986 on before the entire fourteen-mile stretch of creek that runs a 4x8 sheet of secondhand plywood,” Collins says with a through Glacial Park was also restored. During that time, smile, half playfully but wholly heartfelt. District sta昀昀 completed a seven-mile section between This concept of connecting pieces of preserved land was 1998 and 2002, and in 2012 the Army Corps of Engineers part of the inspiration for the creation of Hackmatack completed another seven miles as part of a 206 grant. National Wildlife Refuge in 2012. Located in Northern The Ranger at the Illinois and Southern Wisconsin, this is the 昀椀rst refuge of top of the hill looking its kind to use a “cores and corridors concept” for growth. for those lost picnic Collins is credited with bringing the many partner groups tables was a young Ed together to create the refuge. He was honored with both Collins during his 昀椀rst the Partners in Conservation Award in 2012 by the U.S. year with McHenry Department of the Interior and the Silver Eagle Award in County Conservation 2024 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the role he District. Collins would played in helping to establish the refuge. grow alongside the His message to his sta昀昀 and colleagues has always been Conservation District, that conservation is best achieved through collaboration later taking on roles as and that partnerships achieve far more than any one Vegetation Specialist, agency or organization can on their own. “One of the Restoration Ecologist, most meaningful partnerships has been the Hackmatack Natural Resources Land Protection partnership. It has augmented the work Ed working as a Restoration Ecologist for the District. Manager and 昀椀nally that the District has Director of Land done in multiple areas. Every morning... Preservation and Natural Resources, before retiring in And the partnership September. And while the Nippersink Creek remeander is actually twelve you work for the for most would be a career-de昀椀ning project of a lifetime, organizations, so Conservation District, for Ed Collins it is just one of many. “The Nippersink Creek there's really a lot of you get a brand new Project changed our perspective about what we could di昀昀erent players that canvas, and that accomplish,” Collins says. “And from that point forward are bringing di昀昀erent there wasn’t a project too big to take on.” things to it. That's how canvas is the future... The same year he climbed the kame to look for those you get conservation picnic tables, Collins also created the District’s 昀椀rst land done—you form partnerships,” Collins says. protection plan, albeit uno昀케cially. On a large piece of And when speaking to Collins about these large projects plywood he garbage-picked, Collins taped photocopies over his career, he seems to be able to point to each from a plat book of the entire county. Research was one’s origin. Each of these great achievements and beginning to show the bene昀椀t of larger preserved areas successes have emerged out of a small seed of an idea connected by smaller preserved parcels. that was planted and tended and later grew. Looking Today, this concept has become widely practiced in at conservation in this way makes one begin to feel conservation and is the basis for wildlife corridors, but that anything is achievable, and no dream is too big in the 1980s it was cutting edge. “At the time, ecologists if you start small and stay tenacious. Collins says he is were beginning to understand that just setting aside a frequently asked how we even begin to repair lands park and putting a fence around it wasn't going to do it. when they have been so greatly impacted or damaged. They realized plants and animals moved, and that there He responds, “You do it the same way it happened. You were all kinds of issues if they were stuck in these little do it one project at a time, over the course of several postage stamps,” Collins says. With three colored pencils, generations, and that's how you repair it. Because 2 he began shading in areas of the map. He would later conservation is all about intergenerational equity. It's