The Wild Things Conference Returns Saturday, March 1, 2025 - SOLD OUT
We’re thrilled to welcome you again to learn and share your expertise with our community. We’ve put together an exciting lineup of workshops and sessions from regional and national experts, plus meet & greets, video content, exhibitors, and sponsors. With over 140 presentations and discussion panels to choose from, the in-person program engages a diverse range of topics, research, and skills, and plenty of opportunities to meet with friends, old and new.
Thank you as well to our sponsors, scholarship supporters, and exhibitors who are all helping to make this another tremendously successful Wild Things.
Tickets for Wild Things 2025 are sold out. For additional information on the 2025 conference, visit wildthingscommunity.org.
**PLEASE NOTE: Some details are subject to change.**
NOTICE: Please be advised that photos and videos will be taken during Wild Things 2025. By attending, you consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded. Your attendance on this event constitutes your agreement to the use of any resulting media by Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves for promotional, marketing, or any other purpose in perpetuity, without further approval or any compensation.
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As a person born and brought up in Southern India, I had scant knowledge of its ecology or native flora when I lived there. However, having immigrated to Chicagoland twenty years ago, I have been involved as a volunteer in restoration of sites along the Northbranch of the Chicago River, especially the Somme preserves for over a decade. In the process I have come to recognize many local native species and have developed an understanding for the ecology and native floral community of prairies, savannas, woodlands and their ecotones, thanks to wonderful mentors and fellow volunteers. This has in turn made me wonder about the ecology of Southern India where I spent my formative years, its current state of degradation and whether there is any ecological restoration work that is taking place and if so how it is being conducted. Accordingly, I have been making trips to various places in Southern India the last few years to understand the local ecosystems, the native flora and the ecological restoration that is being undertaken. In this talk I am planning to present from my notes on the ecological restoration in different ecosystems in Southern India that will be of interest to restoration enthusiasts of Chicago and point out the interesting parallels and contrasts in restoration between temperate and tropical natural areas of the globe.
