Coastal wetland loss is one of the most dire environmental threats faced by the United States, and controlling the rate of erosion has proven to be an incredibly challenging and costly endeavor.
Louisianans make up the most at-risk population in the nation in terms of coastal erosion, as the state accounts for 80 percent of the country’s total wetland losses, despite only containing 40 percent of national wetlands.
According to a 2016 U.S. Geological Survey report, Louisiana is losing roughly a football field’s worth of land every hour, which equates to an average of 25 square miles lost annually. While rates of erosion have slowed significantly since their peak in the 1970s, major metropolitan areas throughout the state, including New Orleans, remain at risk of suffering detrimental losses.
A study released earlier this year by the LSU Economics and Policy Research Group indicates that New Orleans will accumulate $1.7 billion in infrastructure damages over the next 50 years if nothing is done to stave off erosion. That total would rise drastically in the event of a major hurricane, as stated in the report.
A variety of factors, both natural and resulting from human activity, contribute to this land loss. These factors include storm surges, rising sea levels and the introduction of invasive species, among many others.
There are a large number of reasons why the preservation and restoration of these lands is imperative, especially for Louisianans. For example, coastal wetlands protect important ports, reduce inland flooding and act as an essential habitat for fish, shellfish and other wildlife.
More than 70 percent of the 300 million dollars that Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry contributes to the state’s economy relies on species such as shrimp, oysters and crabs that use wetlands as nurseries for their young.
In April, Gov. John Bel Edwards formally declared a state of emergency in response to Louisiana’s coastline erosion, in an effort to speed up federal approval of the state’s $50 billion, 50-year plan for coastal restoration.
While state and federal restoration projects have shown marginal success in the past, funding can be hard to come by and wetlands have continued to erode at a staggering rate.
Local entrepreneurs are determined to pick up the slack.
One such entrepreneur, Tommy Waller, spent his youth fishing in the marshlands of Southern Louisiana. Over the course of his life, he has watched his childhood fishing spots deteriorate.
“I spent quite a few years away from Louisiana with the Marine Corps,” Waller said. “When I came home on leave, I would go fishing and notice that the marsh looked a whole lot different than it did when I was a kid.”
Waller launched his business, The Oyster Bed, in response to Louisiana’s changing coastal landscape and the encroaching plight of commercial fishermen along the Gulf Coast.
The Oyster Bed sells oyster-shaped pans that allow its customers to cook, serve and eat oysters without using their shells, as they have been served traditionally for decades. In this way, The Oyster Bed has partnered with local oyster shucking houses to encourage consumers to purchase pre-shucked oysters, so that their shells can be recycled to create new oyster reefs.
“The same oyster fishermen that harvest sacks of oysters are able to take those shells back into the Gulf of Mexico to use as a substrate for new reefs,” he said. “The shells provide a foundation that baby oysters can fix themselves to and eventually grow into a reef.”
According to Waller, there are three main reasons why oyster reefs are invaluable to coastal environments. First, oyster reefs provide habitats for an abundance of other organisms, including minnows, crustaceans and a wide variety of fish, all of which are indispensable to coastal environments.
The reefs also serve as a water filtration system, improving water quality for entire habitats. Because a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, an entire reef has the potential to filter millions of gallons per day. Finally, oyster reefs are capable of reducing up to 93 percent of the impact of storm surges, one of the most destructive causes of coastal erosion.
Through the efforts of The Oyster Bed and oyster shucking houses throughout Louisiana, new manmade oyster reefs are being constructed nearly every day. This process of recycling oyster shells has made oyster reefs one of the most sustainable barriers to wetland loss.
Building reefs is not the only way that local entrepreneurs have gotten involved in preserving the coast; a number of businesses have been launched in an effort to eliminate the invasive species that plague Louisiana’s wetlands. One such business, Righteous Fur, aims to help eradicate nutria by using their fur to design fashion.
Righteous Fur’s founder, Cree McCree, was not aware of how problematic nutria were for Louisiana’s coastline before moving to New Orleans in 2001.
“I thought nutria were just these cute little swamp critters that lived in Louisiana,” McCree said. “I didn’t know that those big orange teeth were so destructive. They don’t graze like cattle. They get down and tear the marsh grasses up by their roots.”
Nutria were originally introduced into Louisiana’s wetlands in the 18th century specifically for the fur trade industry, but when supply began to exceed demand in the 1950s, the price of their pelts fell dramatically.
This sharp decline in demand resulted in an overabundance of nutria that quickly took its toll on crops and marshlands. Through Righteous Fur’s nutria fashion shows, McCree said she hopes to call attention to the damage dealt by the rodents.
Since Righteous Fur’s inception in 2010, McCree has hosted fashion shows throughout the country, including one high-profile exhibition in New York City. At her shows, she screens films about nutria, hires musicians to perform songs about nutria and holds Q&A sessions.
“My goal is to raise awareness about coastal erosion by helping to make environmental issues sexy,” she said. “Everybody loves Righteous Fur because we’ve got sexy models in nutria fur. What’s not to love?”
Another Louisiana business is doing its part to reduce nutria populations not through fashion, but through consumption. Baton Rouge native Veni Harlan saw the toll that nutria were taking on the coast and capitalized on it by launching Marsh Dog, a company that utilizes nutria meat to produce nutritious, organic dog treats. According to Harlan, nutria are an extremely healthy source of protein.
“Nutria meat is very lean,” Harlan said. “It’s leaner than turkey. They only eat plants, so they’re very healthy. They’re also very clean because they’re not connected to pollution like farm animals are. People may not want to eat them, but we figured dogs would.”
These three companies provide only a few examples of the plethora of business opportunities presented by environmental crises. While it remains unlikely that Louisiana’s land loss will cease in the foreseeable future, the contributions of these local entrepreneurs stand as a testament to humanity’s resilience and ingenuity in the face of adversity.
Through the efforts of companies like The Oyster Bed, Righteous Fur and Marsh Dog, coupled with restoration projects introduced on the state and federal levels, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to coastal erosion.
