To creative preservationist types—like Brook McDonald of the Conservation Foundation of DuPage County and anyone involved in a greenway project—they all represent opportunities to preserve land for recreational purposes and natural areas.

Illinois currently ranks 48th among the 50 states in public recreation land per capita.

For a local glimpse at this troubling (and somewhat embarrassing) dearth, let's look at the example offered by Thomas Hahn, executive director of CorLands and one of three "Voices from Illinois' Land Preservation Front," which begins our special focus issue on page 25.

Hahn cites that in the six-county metropolitan region of Chicago, little more than 8 acres out of every 100 are permanently preserved as open space. This means 92 percent of all lands have been or could be developed in that area!

Developers versus preservationists is an ongoing battle here in Illinois and across the country. Yet we hear in this issue (page 25) from John W. Baird, chairman of Baird & Wamer—one of Chicago's leading real estate developers—who intelligently argues that "location, location, location" has everything to do with "property that's near a park, playground or other recreational open space."

To borrow from a great American song, this land is our land. What we do with this land—pave the state or save its natural beauty— affects the health of our environment.

In addition to a wake-up call, inside this issue of Illinois Parks & Recreation you'll learn about successful state-initiated land grant programs like OSLAD and creative tools for saving land that don't necessarily increase the taxpayer's dole.

On the national front, we lost a valuable tool in the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), zeroed out by the U.S. Congress last fall. A major environmental setback.

We cannot afford to sit back and not take steps to ensure this land that is ours can still be called America, the beautiful, next year and next millennium.

ON THE COVER

Lori Ann Cook, a photojoumalist for The Pantagraph in Bloomington, Illinois, spent a year photographing this Bloomington / Normal greenway system for a calendar sold by a local nonprofit. Friends of the Trail. Constitution Trail currently runs 9 miles through both cities with plans underway to more than double ifs length by the year 1997.

4 * Illinois Parks & Recreation * May / June 1996