One 35-degree morning in April, a group of activists—bundled up but upbeat—toted large animal cutouts and posters along a roadside in Rockford, Illinois. They’d assembled to celebrate the imminent emergence of bumble bee queens. The day’s six-legged honorees would soon awaken from hibernation in a nearby patch of habitat called Bell Bowl Prairie, which advocates have spent the better part of a year trying to save from bulldozers. “Even though we are fighting to save it, it is still here, and we can still celebrate that it’s here,” says Jillian Neece, a community organizer for the prairie with Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves. In 2019, the Chicago-Rockford International Airport initiated a $50 million expansion project to create space for more cargo planes and add hundreds of jobs to the region. But Bell Bowl Prairie, which lies on the airport’s property, would be largely paved over and bisected by a new road. Though the airport says it notified media at...