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Chicago -- Friends of the Forest Preserves applauds your editorial in support of the need to review and support a new land policy for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. We are looking forward to working with the board of commissioners as they seek to enact a usable and enforceable land policy.

Without the protections that a new ordinance will provide, our valuable lands will continue to be nibbled away at every turn.

Ninety-one years ago, people of my great-grandfather's generation had the foresight to know that the time would come when natural lands such as those in our preserves would be in great demand in our county.

And people of my grandfather's generation in 1946 and my father's in 1962 understood the need for the preserves and reiterated the need to protect them through land policies set forth then.

Now is the time for us to do the same, to continue to protect these lands for children like my 3-year-old daughter and my 5-year-old son.

Not everybody in Cook County can travel to Yosemite or Yellowstone, or even to Michigan or Wisconsin, to enjoy the great outdoors. But we can all do it right here in our county preserves--for free. We can hike, bike, canoe, ski, fish, scramble for frogs and see a hawk, deer or wild orchid, not to mention more than 100 of Illinois' endangered species.

We as citizens hold these lands in sacred trust for ourselves and generations to come.

Please let's get out and enjoy them. And please, let's work together to protect them.