Last week’s tragic oil spill off the Louisiana coast is a stark reminder that oil and gas exploration and drilling bring with them inherent environmental and human risks. Our hearts go out to the families of those workers still missing.

A spill of this magnitude inevitably represents a serious threat to marine life in the vicinity and to the coastal areas where the oil may eventually wash up. We continue to monitor the spill and will work with state and federal agencies to help protect our coastal ecosystem from harm’s way.

But the threatened Louisiana coast is already in crisis, having lost some 2,300 square miles of coastal wetlands since the 1930s due to misguided federal management of the Mississippi River and its Delta.

Americans have a stake in the protection and restoration of Louisiana’s coastline, whether it is from catastrophic oil spills or from the steady erosion of a fragile coastal ecosystem. This area supports some of the most productive fisheries in the world, provides habitat for millions of migratory birds and many endangered or threatened wildlife species, and is home to 2 million people, many of whom are still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

As industry and agency officials pursue aggressive containment and clean-up of the spill and monitor the leak, we urge our national leaders to make the investments needed to restore and strengthen this vital ecosystem, which supplies so much of our nation’s seafood and sustains our common wildlife heritage.

====
For media comments and questions, please contact National Wildlife Federation’s Coastal Louisiana Communications Manager, Emily Guidry Schatzel at guidrye [at] nwf.org.

by Emily Guidry Schatzel

To advance the effort to restore the Mississippi River Delta (and all the hunting and fishing opportunities it provides), Vanishing Paradise is circulating a national sign-on letter urging Congress to support funding for large-scale land building restoration projects and cooperation between federal and state agencies.

Specifically, the letter asks Congress to do three primary things to support the ongoing repair of this critical wildlife habitat:

1. Secure significant investment from federal, state, and private sources for coastal Louisiana restoration in the next five years;
2. Establish a new, dedicated funding stream to fund coastal Louisiana restoration;
3. Create a comprehensive restoration plan overseen by federal and state representatives with the authority, capacity, and leadership to implement the plan.

Sign-on organizations for the letter include a variety of outdoor equipment manufacturers, businesses, and state and national hunting and fishing organizations. We will be updating the website with a running list of sign-on organizations, so check back often to see if your favorite local businesses have supported coastal Louisiana restoration.

Although the letter is for organizations and businesses, you can also voice your support for this initiative as an individual! Petition for individual advocates will be coming soon, which will also be sent to Congress for review.

Remember: Each year, Louisiana’s coastal marshes host up to twenty percent of our nation’s waterfowl. Seventy percent of the waterfowl that use the Central and Mississippi flyways either winter or stopover in coastal Louisiana. But every 38 minutes, coastland the size of a football field vanishes.

Support coastal Louisiana restoration. Without a healthy coastal Louisiana, duck hunting nationwide is in serious jeopardy!

Check out NWF’s Sportsmen Outreach Coordinator Andy McDaniels on the Kelly Outdoors radio program, where he discusses the problem facing coastal Louisiana today. The Kelly Outdoors program is geared toward hunters and anglers and discusses a variety of issues facing sportsmen and women across the country.