Meet Brian Jackson

Brian is a Community Resiliency Specialist for Environmental Defense Fund’s Coastal Louisiana Restoration project.  His work focuses not only on community resilience, but on nonstructural flood protection in southern Louisiana.

Brian works closely with local community groups through an initiative called “How Safe, How Soon?“.  He helps these communities identify and address their flood and storm risks – and future sustainability – in the vanishing Mississippi River Delta.  Local partners include: the United Houma Nation, New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, and the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation.

“Working on coastal restoration in southern Louisiana means so much more than planting marsh and cypress trees,” said Brian.  “My unique position allows me to explore important questions of how communities live with a landscape and what can be done to make an entire ecosystem more resilient to protect the people, plants and critters who depend upon it for their survival.  I have unique experiences every day and with each person or community I meet in this amazing place.”

Brian holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.A. in Environmental Economics from Johns Hopkins University.