LIAM HENEGHAN, CHRISTOPHER MULVANEY, KRISTEN ROSS, LAUREN UMEK, CRISTY WATKINS, LYNNE M. WESTPHAL, AND DAVID H. WISE

10.1 INTRODUCTION

With a population of 2.7 million, Chicago is the largest city in the US Midwest and the third largest in the country [1] The greater Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) to which Chicago belongs has a population of almost 9.5 million [2] The radical and rapid transformation of the landscape that has occurred over the past century and a half in order to accommodate a burgeoning population might suggest that Chicago is not a promising place to undertake large-scale conservation efforts. However, the region

supports conservation programs that have received widespread local, national and international recognition. That significant biodiversity protection occurs in Chicago is, in part, a consequence of the region’s climate and its evolutionary and ecological history. It is also the result of decisions made by people both before and after the settlement of the region by European and other non-indigenous populations (hereafter referred to as the “settlement” period). These decisions resulted in land protected from development and/or maintained to preserve the characteristic biodiversity of the area.