Coastal Louisiana at Front Lines of Global Warming Damage

(by Marya Fowler, Regional Representative (LA, MO, OK, TX))

Coastal Louisiana is an ecosystem in peril and the nation is at risk.   On December 2, 2008, 30 Affiliate Leaders representing 29 states and 1 US territory participated in a tour of coastal Louisiana as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Affiliate Executive Directors’ Retreat. These leaders witnessed first hand what is at stake and new and bold restoration efforts that the National Wildlife Federation and its partners are proposing to help revitalize the coast.

Part of the day was spent visiting the Village of Grand Bayou, a community that has subsisted in the marshlands for over 300 years. Community members welcomed the group with open arms. The community fed affiliate leaders pot after pot of boiled shrimp and shared stories of their connection to the land. They led boat tours of the marshes where they live and showed how the construction of canals and levees, the leveeing of the Mississippi River, and saltwater intrusion, have led to the gradual loss of the lands they once used to wander as nomadic farmers and fisherman. The existence that this community has known for generations grows less tenable every day.

Grand Bayou is an example of just one of the many communities in coastal LA that is affected by these developments. Louisiana’s coast is home to over 2.4 million residents (over half of Louisiana’s population), many with a unique cultural way of life.

The assets at risk in coastal Louisiana are economically and culturally irreplaceable and are vital to the economic nation as a whole. Southern Louisiana has the largest collective port facility in the U.S. It is home to 3 of the top commercial fisheries ports, accounting for 30 percent of the nation’s seafood catch, as well as the country’s only offshore oil port and support industry. Louisiana is the country’s number one producer of crude oil, and second in petroleum refining capacity – much of it along the coast. The wetlands are home to millions of migratory birds and resident birds, commercial and recreational fisheries and wildlife.

This ecosystem is also at the front lines of global warming and we have to do everything we can to save it. The restoration project that NWF and our partners are involved in is a bold and strategic land-building project. We need to strategically build land to help our communities, our wildlife and our national infrastructure confront the sea level rise associated with global warming.

National funding for this restoration effort is essential and NWF has made restoration of coastal Louisiana a National priority. Just as NWF and our Affiliates have worked together to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Everglades, and other ecosystems of national importance, we hope that we can count on Affiliate support as we move forward with this project.