Making Conservation Meaningful Locally – 2016 DuPage Environmental Summit

More than 300 people, including community leaders, professionals, conservation groups, and environmentally conscious citizens, gathered at the Naperville campus of Northern Illinois University on January 19th for the 2016 DuPage Environmental Summit, Making Conservation Meaningful Where You Live.

How we can all get involved in community-based, effective conservation with deep local impact was the topic of the day, which included exhibitors and several presentations. 

We heard conservation success stories about volunteers cleaning up local creeks during the DuPage River Sweep, a local garden club planting a butterfly garden at City Hall, and parents that incorporated classroom learning, a new playground and a rain garden to solve a flooding problem at an area school.  These were all wonderful examples of the impactful, community-driven conservation that we feel is most effective, and our speakers were very honest about their challenges, mistakes they made and lessons learned along the road to what were ultimately successful projects.

Research shows that people want to live and work in communities where they have clean water, clean air, and lots of parks and open space to enjoy.  We hope that The Conservation Foundation’s Environmental Summit inspired those attending to go back home and get involved in local conservation efforts and promote conservation as a core value in their communities to reach that goal.  If you were not able to attend, we welcome you to spend some time with the resources and videos from the day that we have made available below on this webpage, see what you can learn, and please join us next year!!

We would like to thank our 2016 DuPage Environmental Summit sponsors for helping make the event a great success:

The Pizzo Group
DuPage County
Companions’ Fund of the DuPage Foundation

	2016 DuPage Environmental Summit Presentation Resources & Videos
	Resource Packet PDF – Click Here
Video:  Community Conservation – Making Impact Where You Live Brook McDonald, The Conservation Foundation	Video:  Conservation In Our Community Initiative Jan Roehll, The Conservation Foundation	Video:  Community Sustainability Initiatives Amy Emery, City of Naperville
Video:  Conservation and Health at a Neighborhood School Andi Cooper, WRD Environmental	Video: Warrenville Mighty Acorns® Carolyn Wagner, The Conservation Foundation	Video:  Cleaning Up the Creek Jim Knudsen, Village of Carol Stream
Video:  Organizing Community Environmental Events Kay McKeen, SCARCE	Video:  Saving the Corner Larry Reiner, Butterfield Park District	Video:  Promoting Native Landscaping and Pollinators In Your Community Jim Kleinwachter, The Conservation Foundation