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How local is local?

I work with Red Bison, U of Illinois student prairie restoration group. 
They manage a corridor between a rail line and a highway which is a mile
long and 30 to 60 feet wide.  A portion of the site is extremely weedy,
containing ragweed, burdock, trumpet creeper vine, pokeweed, tree of
heaven, etc.  They plan to burn the area as best they can, and cut the
rest, then spread some prairie seeds on thick, and hope that a good
number of them take hold.

And they have seed.  I think it's something like 15 pounds of tallgrass
mix from Fermi Lab, fortified with extra forbs from the surrounding Kane
County.  But that's just the trouble.  The Red Bison Prairie Corridor is
about 120 miles as the crow flies, south of Fermilab.

What should they do?  They've been trying to work out a trade with a
site half way between the two, such as Goose Lake Prairie or Midewin
National Tallgrass Prairie, and have been talking the the IDNR, though I
don't think they're getting to far with that.

Many of the people around here are eco-type purists, and I feel I am of
that camp as well.  But when we're talking about problems of recreating
whole ecosystems from scraps, can we be so picky?  As mentioned before,
didn't they move around with Native American's and such in the past?  Is
the slight climatic difference between Champaign and Batavia (Fermilab)
enough to warrant such concern?

Frank "FishMan" Hassler
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The bicycle is a vehicle for revolution.  It can destroy the tyranny of
the automobile as effectively as the printing press brought down the
despots of flesh and blood.  The revolution will be spontaneous, the sum
total of individuals revolts like mine.  It may have already begun.
          --Daniel Behrman "The Man Who Loved Bicycles"
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