Constructing nature as constructing science: expertise, activist science, and public conflict in the Chicago wilderness

In April 1996 an exciting new project was announced, an unprecedented conservation undertaking in one of the nation's most densely populated regions. Chicago Wilderness is a collaborative effort among the more than 90 organizations that make up the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council (CRBC) to protect, restore, and manage the region's natural landscapes while educating the public about the value of these lands and management activities. A central goal of Chicago Wilderness is the ecological restoration of landscapes that are considered degraded and no longer representative of their biodiverse, pre- European-settlement condition. The Volunteer Stewardship Network (VSN), working under The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a key member of the CRBC, has been actively restoring these "degraded," "overgrown" landscapes to prairies and open woodlands for as many as twenty years at some sites.