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News Release
For Immediate Release
June 16, 2007
MEDIA CONTACT:
Danny Almanza, PCI
312.558.1770, ext. 140
dalmanza@pcipr.com
OUTSIDE IS BACK IN
Chicago Wilderness Launches “Leave No Child Inside”
Look outside. What’s missing? Children. With the prevalence of the Internet, video games, green space lost to development and parents’ concerns for their children’s safety, it’s now more common for children to play inside than to climb trees outside.
Today at Jackson Park, officials from BP America, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service helped Chicago Wilderness take the first step to reverse this damaging health and environmental trend. The group celebrated the launch of Leave No Child Inside, a new Chicago Wilderness initiative to connect children and nature, with the ultimate goal of promoting children’s health and fostering generations of children that care enough for nature to protect it.
This year, more than 200 Chicago Wilderness member organizations are formalizing their long-standing commitment to forge a connection between children and nature with programs like camping trips, nature scavenger hunts and birding hikes. Beginning next year, Chicago Wilderness members – located in southeastern Wisconsin, through northeastern Illinois, in northwestern Indiana, and into southwestern Michigan – will begin offering all-new programs as part of Leave No Child Inside, including a Chicago Wilderness Field Book that encourages fun and educational visits to local natural areas. Leave No Child Inside comprises hundreds of year-round events in nature that impact millions of children throughout the region.
Leave No Child Inside is built on principles popularized by author Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. The book’s premise is that social changes within the last thirty years have led to a generation of children disconnected from nature. Increasingly, children’s health experts agree that the lack of unstructured outdoor playtime for children may be linked to childhood obesity, attention deficit disorder, depression and other children’s health problems.
“BP is proud to be associated with the Leave No Child Inside initiative,” said Steve Elbert, Vice Chairman of BP America. “Everything about this Chicago Wilderness program is consistent with what BP values and it links directly to BP’s commitment to the environment, education of our youth and being involved within our communities.”
“Our nation has a great heritage of outdoor activity and stewardship,” said Robyn Thorson, Regional Director, Midwest Region, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Because we treasure the link between people and nature we’ve added Leave No Child Inside and similar initiatives to our agency’s national priorities.”
Because of its emphasis on bringing people and the land together, Leave No Child Inside was an ideal fit for the U.S. Forest Service. “For the past decade, Chicago Wilderness has partnered with USFS to reach out to urban audiences in the region, furthered our conservation education work and advanced the service's goal to improve the quality of life in urban areas,” said Michael Prouty, Forest Service Field Representative. “Leave No Child Inside is a natural extension of our commitment to encourage adults to lead children back outside.”
There are more than 200 Chicago Wilderness members that form a natural network spanning more than 300,000 acres of forests, prairies, savannas, wetlands, lakes and other protected open spaces, easily accessible from the homes of most Chicagoans, said Melinda Pruett-Jones, Chicago Wilderness executive director.
“With Leave No Child Inside, Chicago Wilderness members want to foster caring for nature in today’s children and future generations. Many people don’t yet realize that we have gems of open space and wilderness throughout this region just a short drive away,” Pruett-Jones said. “Getting outside with your children is critical for the health of our youth and the long-term conservation of our region’s open space. And when your kids look back on their childhood, their favorite memories won’t be sitting in front of the computer; they will be the time that you taught them to skip stones at the lake or went exploring with them in the woods.”
To learn more about Leave No Child Inside, and to get ideas on where to go and what to do outside with your kids, visit www.KidsOutside.info.
Chicago Wilderness is a regional nature reserve that includes more than 300,000 acres of protected natural areas. It stretches from southeastern Wisconsin, through northeastern Illinois into northwestern Indiana, and into southwestern Michigan. The protected areas of Chicago Wilderness are forest preserves, state parks, federal lands, county preserves, and privately owned lands. There are also many unprotected natural areas that offer refuge to native wildlife.
The Chicago Wilderness consortium is an alliance of more than 200 public and private organizations working together to protect, restore, study and manage the natural ecosystems of the Chicago region, contribute to the conservation of global biodiversity, and enrich local residents’ quality of life. To learn more about the consortium and the magnificent natural areas that are the real Chicago Wilderness, visit www.chicagowilderness.org.
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