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SAVING WILD LANDS IN ILLINOIS: 
County Conservation District Act Appears More Versatile 
Than Original Forest Preserves Legislation 
by O. T. BANTON 
Illinois now has two laws under which counties are given authority to set 
up programs for acquisition of forest lands for perpetual preservation — 
and for a wide variety of public uses. 
Under the Forest Preserves Act, passed by the state legislature some 
50 years ago, counties may acquire forested areas and develop them as 
wildlife sanctuaries or for limited recreational use. Then counties — among 
them Cook, DuPage, Winnebago, Piatt, and Champaign — set up such 
districts, but none has been created for a long time. The Cook County 
Forest Preserve system of some 50,000 acres is operated under a separate 
law and, of course, is nationally known. 
In 1963 the Legislature passed the County Conservation District Act, 
and so far five counties have made use of it. They are Boone (in 1964), 
and Macon, LaSalle, Vermillion and Putnam which voted in 1966 to form 
their districts. 
State Conservation Department Director William T. Lodge, and others 
knowledgeable in the field, regard the Conservation District Act as far 
the more versatile of the two since it provides for a much wider variety 
of development, and operational uses of tracts that are acquired. Lodge, 
whose father was one of the authors of the Forest Preserve District law, 
has said he wished every county in Illinois could have a conservation 
district. His home county of Piatt has a forest preserve district, and is for 
that reason prohibited from having a county conservation district. The 
1963 law specifies that a county cannot have both. 
These are the principal differences and similarities in the two laws: 
Only one county may be included in a Forest Preserve District, but 
a County Conservation district may include from one to five counties. 
A conservation district is authorized to levy a one-fourth mill tax for 
development and administrative purposes, and three-fourths of a mill for 
land acquisition. A forest preserve district is limited to a fourth-mill 
levy, except it may go above this for bond payments. Neither district 
may bond itself without referendum approval. 
Bonded indebtedness of either type of district may not exceed one-half 
of one per cent of the district’s assessed valuation. 
Both kinds of districts have powers of eminent domain. 
Provision for recreational uses of tracts owned by a county conserva- 
tion district is far more extensive than is allowed the forest preserve district 
boards. Such uses in the latter are limited mainly to equipping picnic areas, 
with outdoor game courts and picnic tables on the fringes of the wooded 
tracts, nature trails and bridle paths through the timber acreage. Mainly, 
