The World Still Needs More Louisiana
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It’s been over a year since we launched our partnership with Dirty Coast to share the message that “The World Needs More Louisiana.” That fact still rings true today, so we’re thrilled to announce a continuation and expansion of the partnership with Dirty Coast through their charitable arm Screens for Good. Starting today and over the course of the next 28 days, you have the opportunity to buy a variety of “The World Needs More Louisiana” products – t-shirts, tote …
Service Day at the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle
The platform at the end of Caffin Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward over looks Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle. The Wetland Triangle, which makes up 400 acres of the 30,000 acre Central Wetlands Unit, is where Bayou Bienvenue begins to snake along the wetlands that make up the border of Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes and eventually ends in Lake Borgne. Once a thriving cypress swamp, the Triangle provided the adjacent neighborhood with fishing, trapping, timber and recreation. This important …
Summer Boat Tour: Multiple Lines of Defense
What better way to spend a morning than on a boat, skirting storms and learning about the wetlands and levee system that protect the Greater New Orleans area? Last week, National Wildlife Federation, partnering with the City of New Orleans on a summer field trip series, led four boats filled with community leaders on a tour of the wetlands along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) and the $1.1billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier. Our enthusiastic participants, including government …
Coastal Supporter Spotlight: Kassy McCall, NOLA Til Ya Die
Guests gather at NOLA Til Ya Die for crawfish, trivia, and coastal restoration. In 2014, Kassy McCall opened NOLA Til Ya Die in a Mid-City warehouse where Toulouse Street meets Bayou St. John. “I had been down in the French Market selling ‘Til Ya Die’ merchandise since 2012,” she explains, “mostly as test marketing.” McCall’s “Til Ya Die” designs are recognizable to many New Orleanians, but have a deeper connection to the city’s Hurricane Katrina recovery than most realize. After …
Tracking Fish with Acoustic Telemetry—Implementation of an Exciting Technology in Lake Pontchartrain
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and many other fisheries organizations and scientists worldwide have traditionally used fish tags to keep track of fish populations. You may have even applied these simple dart-tipped plastic tags to a fish yourself. Standard fish tagging efforts (in part) identify where the fish was originally captured, Point A, and then where the fish was recaptured, Point Z. But there is not a clear picture of where these fish were for points B, …
Louisiana Wetlands: Recognizing a National Treasure During American Wetlands Month
May is American Wetlands Month, and Louisiana’s coastal wetlands are some of the most productive ecosystems in North America. Not only do they provide habitat for numerous fish, wildlife and birds, but they also help improve water quality, provide recreational opportunities and protection for people and infrastructure from damaging storm surges. Wildlife habitat and nurseries Wetlands serve as a nursery environment for juvenile fish. The countless ponds, bays and bayous found in the Mississippi River Delta provide essential habitat for …
Caring for Creation—an Earth Day Sunday Field Trip
When John Taylor was a boy growing up in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, cypress trees were so thick in nearby Bayou Bienvenue that he didn’t need a paddle for his pirogue. He could pull himself along by grabbing the cypress knees. Aaron Viles, Rayne Caring For Creation Committee member and Gulf Restoration Network board member discusses the state of advocacy efforts to restore the Bayou and Louisiana’s coastal wetlands with John Taylor, Lower Ninth Ward Center for …
The Bonnet Carré Provides Plenty of Recreational Opportunities
Originally posted on Vanishing Paradise. See original post here. In January of this year, high water on the lower Mississippi River prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open of the Bonnet Carré Spillway for the 11th time in its 85-year history. The Bonnet Carré Spillway doesn’t just help lower water levels pressing against the flood protection levees, it’s also a thriving wilderness area that benefits from the periodic opening of the spillway structure and the sediment and fresh …
EDF Voices: Amid Dramatic Sea Level Rise, Nature Itself Can Provide a Much-Needed Solution
Even if we manage to reach our goals for reducing greenhouse gases, the world will experience a dramatic sea level rise by 2100 – the latest study estimates by as much as six feet. With a water level that much higher than it is today, major coastal cities such as Boston, New York and Miami are sure to be below sea level. So the key question now is, how do we adapt to climate change effects we can no longer …
Plaquemines Parish Voices of Restoration: Wine for the Wetlands 2016
On Thursday, March 24th, the Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition hosted its second annual Wine for Wetlands happy hour. The event is an important part of our Coalition’s work in Plaquemines Parish and provides an opportunity for elected parish officials, community leaders and local coastal restoration advocates to celebrate coastal restoration successes and explore strategies for the future. Attendees gathered at Foster Creppel’s Woodland Plantation, just north of West Pointe-a-la-Hache. A recent storm had raised the Mississippi River to …
2015 Brings Momentum for the Louisiana Coast
By Emily Guidry Schatzel, Senior Communications Manager, Mississippi River Delta Restoration, National Wildlife Federation Louisiana’s Mississippi River Delta is a region in dire need of comprehensive restoration. We all know the harrowing statistic facing coastal Louisiana: every hour, a football field of land vanishes off the coast. According to historical averages, Louisiana loses 16 to 25 square miles per year. The rest of the Gulf, which is in many places still working to rebound economically and ecologically from the 2010 Gulf oil disaster, …
Submit Your Coastal Restoration Questions for Louisiana’s Next Governor!
What coastal restoration questions do you have for Louisiana’s gubernatorial candidates? Now is your chance to ask them! The Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition is a sponsor of the upcoming Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) gubernatorial debate on November 10 at 7:00 p.m. Central, and we want to hear from you. Finding solutions to restore Louisiana’s vanishing coast will be high on the list of challenges the next governor will face – a recent survey found 85 percent of voters …
CRCL Leads the Largest One-Day Volunteer Restoration Effort to Commemorate Hurricane Rita
By Jimmy Frederick, Communications Director, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana Ten years ago the beaches of Cameron Parish were under 15 feet of Gulf of Mexico water as Hurricane Rita slammed ashore. Rita was the second major hurricane to hit Coastal Louisiana in less than a month in 2005 and was, in fact, stronger than Hurricane Katrina when it made landfall. The storm surge inundated coastal communities as far inland as Lake Charles and left thousands of homes and businesses …
New report quantifies storm reduction benefits of natural infrastructure and nature-based measures
By Shannon Cunniff, Deputy Director for Water, Environmental Defense Fund Coastal zones are the most densely populated areas in the world. In the U.S., they generate more than 42 percent of the nation’s total economic output. These coastal communities, cities and infrastructure are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising seas and increased storms, as well as ongoing coastal development, have stripped these natural environments of their innate resilience to storms and flooding, leaving coastlines and the …
MRD Priority Restoration Projects Included in Restore Council's Initial Draft Funded Priorities List
By Helen Rose Patterson, Greater New Orleans Outreach Coordinator, Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition Last week, the RESTORE Council completed the last of six public meetings about their draft Initial Funded Priorities List. Restore the Mississippi River Delta staff attended the meeting in New Orleans on the University of New Orleans campus. Justin Ehrenwerth, executive director of the RESTORE Council, provided a brief overview of the Council-selected priority watersheds in the Gulf and a more detailed explanation of the …