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Introduction
Louisiana has lost 1.2 million acres of its coastal wetlands since the 1930s, but it took hurricanes Katrina and Rita to make the case forcefully for why such coastal land loss must be reversed. When Katrina hit southern Louisiana in August 2005, the American public was awakened to the fact that coastal wetlands help defend population centers and industrial facilities from storm damage — something many conservation organizations had been saying for some time.
The cover article in this issue of Mosaic features the work of two such groups — the Gulf Restoration Network and Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana — that the Mott Foundation has supported since 2000.
 Sam Passmore |
After piecing their personal lives back together and getting their operations up and running again, the staff members of these and other organizations have been hard at work since the storms. They have reminded government officials, opinion leaders and the general public that coastal restoration must be on par with levee building going forward.
And they have done this work with an increasing sense of urgency, because some experts now believe that the window of opportunity to restore the Louisiana coast could close within 10 years. If the nation waits to act, they say, the damage could progress to the point where restoration is no longer a realistic option.
This prospect is profoundly worrisome, because coastal restoration is more than just an environmental issue. It’s an economic security issue. It’s a cultural survival issue. In short, it goes right to the heart of what it means to be from Louisiana — and the Gulf Coast more generally.
Because coastal restoration in some way touches nearly every aspect of life in southern Louisiana, this issue of Mosaic also highlights other work in and around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast being supported by Mott and aimed at helping people recover from the storms’ impacts. For those readers who have not been to Louisiana lately (or at all), we hope this package of articles adds to your understanding of not only how much has been accomplished but also how much remains to be done.
Sam Passmore
Program Officer