Plant Monitoring

People had a close relationship with plants long before we understood the science behind their importance. We appreciate their individual beauty, as well as the beauty they add to their surroundings.

Beyond aesthetics and emotional well-being, plants provide important benefits that enhance the quality of life in your community. Trees and other plants add economic value to your home, help cool your home and neighborhood, and break cold winds to lower your heating costs. Plants clean the air by absorbing pollutants, while releasing oxygen into the environment. Plants also reduce storm water runoff, improve water quality and reduce erosion. In addition to all these benefits, plants are a very important resource in a forest preserve, providing habitat for a diversity of native wildlife species.

Our foresters and restoration ecologists work hard to protect these important resources. Formal Forestry and Plant Monitoring Programs help us allocate land management resources and plan restoration efforts. Monitoring efforts give us a better understanding of the occurrence, distribution and status of plant populations in the preserves.

Data collected through plant monitoring help us make sure that common species remain common and that rare, threatened, and endangered species receive continued protection and assistance.

By providing crucial information about the status of plant populations in the preserves, our Forestry and Plant Monitoring Programs serve a critical role in fulfilling our mission of preserving and protecting a diversity of habitats in Lake County.