President Obama Takes Crucial Step for Wetlands

Restoration efforts will benefit critical Louisiana coastal habitat.

"On the eve of the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Obama took a crucial step toward saving Louisiana's nationally important coastal wetlands that provide natural hurricane protection, essential economic benefits and vital habitat for birds and other wildlife," says Dr. Paul Kemp, Vice President of Audubon's Louisiana Coastal Initiative and a recognized coastal expert. One of the worst disasters in our nation's history, Hurricane Katrina made its landfall in New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality announced it was creating a new federal interagency task force to coordinate the "economic and environmental resiliency" of Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast region. Audubon and other conservation groups have called for White House intervention in what is widely viewed as a stagnant process – now overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – for bolstering coastal wetlands.

Audubon and other national and regional conservation groups are urging bold actions to reconnect the Mississippi River to its delta in Louisiana, thereby allowing sediment and freshwater to maintain and rebuild coastal marshes that help lessen storm surges, provide critical wildlife habitat, protect oil and gas infrastructure, and serve as nurseries for shrimp and other valuable aquatic species. Primarily because of the separation of the Mississippi River from its delta by levees, Louisiana has lost more than 1.2 million acres of coastal land in the last 75 years, representing about 80 percent of all coastal land loss in the United States. Louisiana continues to lose the equivalent of up to 32 football fields of coastal land each day.