Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council Convenes for First Time, Discusses Restoration Plan
← Older posts Newer posts →Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council Convenes for First Time, Discusses Restoration Plan
By Whit Remer, Policy Analyst, Environmental Defense Fund Last week, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council held its first public meeting in Mobile, Ala. to update residents on the progress of implementing the RESTORE Act. The law, which Congress passed in June 2012, dedicates 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines from the BP oil spill back to the Gulf Coast for restoration. Those fines, expected to reach billions of dollars, will help stabilize and revive troubled ecosystems across the …
Duck Commander Urges Restoration of Mississippi River Delta's Imperiled Wetlands
This release was originally posted by Vanishing Paradise. By Chris Macaluso, Louisiana Wildlife Federation Duck Commander, a world-leader in the manufacture of duck calls and waterfowl hunting equipment and the company featured in the A&E television program “Duck Dynasty,” recently added its name to a list of more than 800 businesses and organizations to sign a letter urging Congress to support the restoration of the Mississippi River Delta’s imperiled wetlands. The letter is part of the Vanishing Paradise campaign’s efforts …
SMART Solutions for Restoration: The Second Summit on Coastal Restoration in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes
By Maura Wood, National Wildlife Federation On Oct. 31, 2012, Garret Graves, director of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), spoke at the Second Summit on Coastal Restoration in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes held at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La. At the time, summit attendees were unaware of the proposed settlement on criminal penalties against BP for oil spill damages that would designate a sizable portion of these funds over the next five years to river diversions and …
Video: Postcards from New Orleans: Hope for the Northeast
By Elizabeth Skree, Environmental Defense Fund If anyone can sympathize with the Northeast as it recovers from Hurricane Sandy, it’s the residents of New Orleans. I found this out firsthand on recent trip to Louisiana. httpv://youtu.be/mLuI4g00WAE While Hurricane Sandy battered the Northeast, I was in South Louisiana with Environmental Defense Fund’s Creative Director, Nicole Possin, working on a video about wetlands restoration in the Mississippi River Delta. We’d planned the trip long before we knew about Sandy, and the irony …
The Power of We: The Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign
By Happy Johnson, Amanda Moore and Elizabeth Skree Our Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign works to reconnect the Mississippi River to its delta to protect people, wildlife and jobs. At our core, we are the “Power of We”: a coalition of five national and local non-governmental organizations — the National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation — working together to save a national treasure: the Mississippi River Delta. The …
Fairhope, Alabama: First stop on Mississippi River Fall Flyway Migration Tour
By Kevin Chandler, Communications Coordinator, Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign Last week, the Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign’s Fall Flyway Migration Tour touched down in coastal Alabama for the 9th Annual John L. Borom Coastal BirdFest. On October 4 and 5, we tabled at the 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, the second largest delta in the United States. The 5 Rivers Center sits at the point where the Mobile, Spanish, Tensaw, Apalachee and Blakeley rivers meet to …
October 27: Community Field Trip: Saturday on the Bayou!
By Happy Johnson, National Wildlife Federation You’re invited to participate in a coastal field trip right here in New Orleans! Join us Saturday, October 27 for a morning of exploring residential coastal areas. Would you like to attend? Please be sure to RSVP to JohnsonH@NWF.org or (504) 315-5083. What: Tour of the Mississippi River Levee and Lower 9 Bayou Bienvenue Viewing Platform Date: Saturday, October 27 Time: 10:30 a.m. — noon Who: New Orleans residents who want to visit and learn more …
Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign to launch fall bird migration tour
By Ryan Rastegar, Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign Coordinator The Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign is organizing a fall migration tour! Throughout the months of October and November, our staff will be organizing events up and down the Mississippi River to highlight the important role the delta plays in maintaining a healthy Mississippi Flyway. The Mississippi Flyway is a bird migration route that our winged friends generally follow along the Mississippi River when migrating south in the fall and north …
Community Conversations on Coastal Restoration
By Happy Johnson, National Wildlife Federation Louisiana is facing a coastal crisis. We lose one football field of wetlands every hour. 1,900 square miles of land has been lost already since the 1930s, and another 1,800 square miles are expected to be lost within the next 50 years unless we implement significant coastal restoration projects. Coastal land loss has strong, direct impacts on all communities, especially Black and Vietnamese fishing populations in the Mississippi River Delta. Without urgent restoration of …
Poll: Hunters and Anglers Overwhelmingly Support Gulf Clean-up
Sportsmen and women want fines from 2010 gulf oil disaster used to restore critical coastal ecosystems. This was originally posted on VanishingParadise.org. A new national poll released yesterday shows that hunters and anglers prioritize protecting the gulf ecosystem and using fines paid by BP and other parties responsible for the 2010 Gulf oil disaster to be used for gulf restoration. The poll conducted by Chesapeake Beach Consulting shows threats to America’s conservation heritage are priority issues for sportsmen and women, …
Tagged ReportsConference: Answering Fundamental Questions about Mississippi River Delta Restoration
By Shannon Hood, Environmental Defense Fund On October 9 and 10, the Mississippi River Delta Science and Engineering Special Team (SEST) will host its first conference, titled “Answering Fundamental Questions about Mississippi River Delta Restoration.” The SEST was convened over two years ago and is comprised of leading engineers, economists and scientists from around the country with specialties ranging from river engineering to coastal ecology to sociology. This team brings a new approach to Mississippi River Delta restoration, in that …
Tagged ReportsThe Next 50 Years: Transition for Coastal Communities
By Maura Wood (National Wildlife Federation) and Brian Jackson (Environmental Defense Fund) For decades, the people of southern Louisiana have gradually struggled with the collapse of the Mississippi River Delta. Land that once provided shelter from hurricanes, space for agriculture, a basis for livelihoods and a source for recreation has — sometimes in one generation — disappeared. This slow-motion crisis has forced communities and economies along Louisiana’s coast to adapt to collapse. Large-scale restoration of the delta provides new hope …
The Next 50 Years: Implementation of Coastal Master Plan projects
By David Muth, Louisiana State Director, National Wildlife Federation Now that Louisiana’s 2012 Coastal Master Plan is law, it is critical that the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) moves the process forward as quickly as possible. While the plan lays out a series of projects for over its fifty-year timeframe, the actual sequence of projects has not yet been completely planned. The sooner CPRA can finalize this project list and timeline, the sooner vital construction and restoration can …
The RESTORE Act: Past, present and future
By Whit Remer, Policy Analyst, Environmental Defense Fund It’s been an exciting year for Louisiana and the Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign. In July 2011, nine gulf senators banded together and introduced the RESTORE Act – legislation that would ensure penalties paid by BP and others responsible for the gulf oil spill would be used to restore the gulf region’s environment and economy. In September, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the bill and in October, Representative Steve …
Tagged EconomicsHow much is a Louisiana oyster worth?
By Meg Sutton, Environmental Defense Fund Oyster reefs in coastal estuaries around the globe have been degraded for the past 100-200 years due to a combination of overfishing, harmful dredging practices, decreasing water quality, sedimentation and oyster diseases.1 Many formerly productive reefs are now functionally extinct, and it is estimated that 85 percent of reefs have been lost globally.2 The majority of commercial oysters are currently sourced from only five eco-regions in the world, concentrated on the east coast of North …
Tagged Economics