For a hot week in August folks gathered in DeRidder, LA to learn and build portable solar units to be used both in blue skies and in disaster situations. Rev. Jerry Egbert and Boksoon Egbert hosted a crew of eager learners from across the coast. At the end of the week, one complete unit was taken away on the back of a pickup truck and delivered to Grand Bayou.
Theresa Dardar, Donald Dardar, and Kristina Peterson discuss land loss as the first part of the PBS docuseries “In Their Element: Earth, Air, Fire, Water.” Watch it here!
A new report by Naomi Yoder and Sheehan Moore analyzes pollution incidents that occurred directly or indirectly due to Hurricane Ida.
Lowlander Center will be a partner in the research hub lead by Haskell Indian Nations University.
On Friday, May 21, Lowlander Board Member Mây Nguyễn and longtime Lowlander collaborator Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar presented on a National Academy of Science panel. The panel, titled "Oil in the Sea: Inputs, Fates and Effects, Perspectives from Coastal Indigenous Communities” highlighted the emerging challenges coastal Indigenous communities face due to extractive industry.
You can view Mây’s presentation slides here; Chief Shirell’s will be uploaded in the near future.
More than 200 energy justice, racial justice, faith and youth organizations are calling on President Joe Biden’s four nominees to the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors to commit to transitioning the utility to 100% renewable and just energy by 2030. TVA is the nation’s largest public power provider.
We stand in solidarity with our friends from Pointe-au-Chien and Isle de Jean Charles Tribal communities as they work to save their elementary school. On Thursday, Pointe-aux-Chenes parents, residents and students staged a protest against the school closure.
The Honorable Deb Haaland
Secretary of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington DC 20240
Dear Secretary Haaland,
We at the Lowlander Center, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Louisiana's coastline and the people living there, would like to congratulate you on your confirmation as Secretary of the Interior.
Your historic appointment is both encouraging and promising, especially given your commitment to climate justice and environmental restoration. At the Lowlander Center, we couldn’t be more thrilled to learn about the Biden administration’s commitment to protecting 30% of U.S. public lands and oceans. This is critical work, and it’s urgently needed in the coastal region of Louisiana, where climate change is already doing significant — and growing — damage.
Those threats stem, in part, from the tens of thousands of man made canals that have been dug by oil and gas companies over the past century. More than 27,000 of these canals aren’t used any more and have been largely abandoned, but they haven’t been refilled. That has caused large-scale land erosion, and the loss of valuable coastline is leaving the entire region at greater risk of flooding and severe damage to the state’s key tourism and seafood industries. Unemployment will spike if businesses are forced to close because of climate change and land loss.
Native tribes, who have survived on the region’s natural resources for hundreds of years, are paying a steep and growing cost. They’re losing their homes, farms, fisheries, and sacred sites to storm damage. They’re having a harder time supporting their families and preserving their most important traditions.
Fortunately, there is an inexpensive and scientifically-proven solution: refilling the abandoned canals. Filling the canals with sediment can restore them and encourage marshes to grow back naturally over time. When those marshes return, they can mitigate storm impact and reduce chances of flooding and refurbish habitat for juvenile shellfish and fin fish that has been diminished. We’ve already received grants from the National Estuary Program, an initiative that is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
We would love the opportunity to share more information with you or your staff regarding this project.
We need your support to continue and expand this work. If we are going to restore and protect the Louisiana coastline and the people living there, we must act fast. Federal aid would allow us to refill more canals and protect the coastline of Louisiana from the impacts of climate change. Doing this has the potential to restore land, preserve jobs, protect tribal heritage, and save lives.
We’d be honored to meet with you or your staff to discuss the project and ways you might be able to help support it. In the meantime, we congratulate you again on making history and look forward to seeing the new path you chart for the department.
Signed,
Kristina J Peterson, PhD
Facilitator-Director
Lowlander Center
Theresa Dardar, Elder
President, Lowlander Center Board
Pointe au Chien Indian Tribe
Grail Member
Rosina Philippe, Elder
Lowlander Center Board Member
First People's Conservation Council, President
Atakapa-Ishak Chawasha
Elder/Tribal Historian
Louise Fortmann, PhD
Lowlander Center Board Member
Professor of the Graduate School
Professor Emerita of Natural Resource Sociology
Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley
Michèle Companion, Ph.D.
Lowlander Center Board Member
Professor and Department Chair
Department of Sociology
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Mây Nguyễn, JD
Lowlander Center Board Member
Development Director
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Evan Ponder
Lowlander Board Member
Housing Specialist
Shirley Laska, PhD
Lowlander Center - Co-Founder
Professor Emerita
Founder – Center for Hazards Response and Technology
University of New Orleans
Alessandra Jerolleman, PhD, MPA, CFM
Associate Professor of Emergency Management, Jacksonville State University
Facilitator, Lowlander Center
Mona Porter
Webmaster, Lowlander Center
Lowlander Center Canal Project Team
R. Eugene Turner
Dept. Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, La. 70810
Donald Dardar
Deputy Chief
Pointe au Chien Indian Tribe
Julie Maldonado, Ph.D.
Associate Director, Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN)
Co-Director, The Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences
Shirell Parfait-Dardar
Chief, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi, Chitimacha, Choctaw
Chairwoman, Louisiana Governor's Office Indian Affairs Native American Commission
Secretary, First People's Conservation Council
Mira S. Olson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Dept of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Director, Peace Engineering Program
Drexel University
Jeana C. Gómez
Greyspace Collective
Julie Torres, MS
Independent Researcher
Earth & Environmental Science
Rebecca Lovingood
Physical Oceanographer, retired
Tribal Support of Impacted Tribes
Marlene V. Foret
Chairwoman, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw
Dana Parfait-Menard
Deputy Chief, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw
Crystlyn Rodrigue
2nd Deputy Chief, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw
Devon Parfait
Future Chief, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw
Image copyright (c) U.S. Department of the Interior made available under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.
At the end of January, Rev. Kristina Peterson and Ms. Sharon Lavigne were presenters for the Climate Crisis Policy network's faith working group.
