Highland Park has become the second municipality in Illinois to earn a “Community Wildlife Habitat” designation from the National Wildlife Federation after a two-year push by city residents.
Members of Habitat Highland Park, which began organization efforts two years ago, were recognized during Monday’s City Council meeting. One of those volunteers, Candice Dalrymple, talked about how the group came about, and why the designation was important.
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF), founded in 1936, is one of the largest nonprofit conservation organizations in the country. It runs the Community Wildlife Habitat program, which recognizes wildlife-friendly municipalities.
Dalrymple moved to Highland Park during the pandemic, which she said drove her to be more invested in the outdoors and the environment. When she first heard of the NWF and the Community Wildlife Habitat program, she was dismissive.
“Why is that important? Who cares about a merit badge?” she recalled thinking. But her feelings changed when she learned more.
“It’s not just a merit badge,” Dalrymple said. “It means there’s a network of waystations established throughout the town where butterflies, hummingbirds and other kinds of pollinators that are critical to biodiversity in our area, can go.”
The designation is given to communities with a sufficient proportion of certified, wildlife-friendly properties and environment-related education and outreach. Residents can get their gardens certified by the NWF if they meet certain requirements, such as sufficient food and water sources, native plants and sustainable gardening practices, meaning no herbicides or pesticides.
Dalrymple, along with a small group of fellow eco-minded residents, got together to form Habitat Highland Park, and began organizing efforts to achieve the community-wide certification.
She said they connected with various area organizations, including the environmental group Go Green, the League of Women Voters and the Rotary Club. The collaboration helped significantly speed up the certification process for residents, Dalrymple said.
When Dalrymple learned the city had been certified last fall, she was thrilled. It was proof of a concept the NWF has put “considerable thought” into — how the actions of individuals and small groups can have a butterfly effect, and how small actions can start a conversation in a community.
“I can’t tell people, ‘Let’s pull together and change what ExxonMobil is doing with its gas production.’” she said. “That’s not possible. So what could we do in terms of individual contributions to our local communities that are in control of every single person?”
The NWF program encourages the cultivating of native plants, something Dalrymple said she was completely unaware of a few years ago. Native plants are generally better for the environment, requiring less watering because of their deeper root systems.
“Many of the beautiful plants we see all around the houses in the Chicago area … are imported from Asia and Europe,” she said. “They’re beautiful, no question about that, but they require a lot of cultivation and different kinds of chemicals to keep them healthy.”
Native plants also provide food for pollinators such as butterflies, which have seen increasingly dire assessments in the U.S. According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit focused on invertebrates, five butterfly species have gone extinct since the 1950s, with an additional 29 listed as endangered nationwide.
“I think people are not aware there are a large number of our species under threat,” Dalrymple said. “They’re declining and we may not even have them. We can’t lose these important pollinators because they are part of the food chain that ultimately results in the food and vegetables we have on our tables.”
Informing people about wildlife — whether plant, bug or animal — and the dangers they face will be part of Habitat’s ongoing community outreach efforts, Dalrymple said, including with the local schools.
“People are really eager to be a part of a program that is good for nature and good for the town, but they need to know about it,” she said. “They need to understand what they can contribute. Education and outreach is really critical.”
