ABSTRACT
Coastal Louisiana’s intricate web of natural ecosystem diversity is unraveling. Hydrological, meteorological, and environmental disasters, extractive industries, river mismanagement, and climate change are drastically transforming the coastal landscape and waterscape. Ten thousand miles of canals were cut through Louisiana’s coastal wetlands to create passageways for pipelines and navigation. Local and Indigenous knowledge tells us that canals, primarily constructed for oil and gas extraction, in and around the tribal communities, particularly from the 1950s–1970s, is the dominant cause of current land loss (Bethel et al. 2011). These anthropogenic influences, and others, resulted in Louisiana having among the highest land loss rates in the world (Carter et al. 2018). Within this context and in response to the rapidly increasing climate crisis, three Tribes in coastal Louisiana – Grand Bayou, Grand Caillou/Dulac, and Pointe-au-Chien – initiated a project to restore marshland in their communities in order to preserve sacred places and reduce land loss. This will be done by filling in the canals dredged in Louisiana’s wetlands, whose dredged materials create continuous levees, or spoil banks, that are aligned perpendicular to the canal. Filling in canals with the spoil bank is called “backfilling” and is intended to restore marsh on the spoil bank and in the canal and prevent further marsh loss. Without this project, these vital sacred sites will disappear due to erosion from the surrounding canals and spoil banks, and with them their legacy and significance for the Tribes. This project provides a lagniappe – the extra value gained from simultaneously restoring marshes and protecting sacred sites. These actions enable a sustainable and justice-centered adaptation process and a regenerative future that is based on human and environmental rights with full participation in the well-being of community. The project melds human and physical dimensions into co-problem solving. Each phase will document, analyze, and assess relationships between cultural and Indigenous heritage, coastal restoration, and community resilience, and bridge gaps between the knowledge and experience held by citizen knowledge-holders, and other scientists, while enhancing community resilience across generations. The project team brings together local Indigenous leaders, knowledge-holders and scientists with western physical and social scientists, centering Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge, and modeling to co-produce a decision matrix to determine the optimal places for canal restoration, and then restore them. This project tests innovative and replicable strategies to increase cultural heritage and community resilience and develop a resilient cultural heritage safe-haven prototype. This environmental justice- and community-driven project fills a critical role in shaping cumulative best practices for integrating coastal resilience activities and cultural heritage in all at-risk regions of the United States.
