| "We're losing the equivalent of a football field every 20 minutes. We're fighting the clock right now." | |
| Sidney Coffee, Louisiana Governor's Office |
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Families in Iowa benefit from Louisiana's wetlands. This is the connection a national public awareness campaign hopes people across America will make as Louisiana fights to keep its coast from disappearing into the sea.
"We want people to know about the problem and understand the need to save this land, and realize that it's in the national interest to do so," says Sidney Coffee, director of Public Affairs for the Louisiana Governor's Office on Coastal Activities.
"America's Wetland: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana" is the largest public awareness initiative in the state's history. Its goals, Coffee explains, are to "educate the nation about the dramatic land loss occurring off Louisiana's coast" and increase the support for conservation efforts.
The campaign hopes to "rebrand" Louisiana's coast as "America's wetland."
"We didn't come up with this name lightly," Coffee says. With the help of a Washington, D.C., communications firm, the state conducted seven months of research, which included interviews with people across the country. The name was the unanimous choice of those interviewed, "once they understood what was going on here and the benefits of the wetlands. They said it was clear this was not just a Louisiana problem, but a national problem."
The problem, Coffee says, is that Louisiana's coast, which contains 40 percent of the nation's wetlands, is disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 35 square miles a year. "We're losing the equivalent of a football field every 20 minutes. We're fighting the clock right now."
People in Iowa or other states should care about this fight, Coffee says, because "25 percent of the oil and gas consumed in the nation comes through these fragile wetlands by tanker, barge, or pipeline. More than 30 percent of the nation's fisheries comes from these wetlands. This is the wintering habitat for more than 5 million waterfowl and migratory birds." Her list goes on and on.
"This area has direct implications on America's energy independence, economic security, and has ecological value for the world. That's kind of the story in a nutshell," she says.
Louisiana needs national support because the cost of restoring its wetlands will be upwards of $14 billion, much more than the state can afford. Coffee notes, however, that the cost of inaction is estimated at more than $100 billion in infrastructure alone.
To get this message out, Louisiana kicked off its planned three-year awareness campaign last August. The campaign includes national television spots, a Web site, collaborations with national media, workshops, the creation of a wetlands trail, and the establishment of a nonprofit foundation that can receive contributions for either public education or restoration efforts.
To accomplish the campaign's goals, the state has gathered an "unlikely coalition" of corporations, environmental organizations, and others. For instance, Coffee says, the Shell Oil Company Foundation has pledged $3 million in seed money for the campaign, and the McIlhenny Company has agreed to put informational cards on bottles of Tabasco distributed internationally. Ducks Unlimited is giving $10 million for restoration efforts spelled out in the state's ambitious Coast 2050 plan, and Environmental Defense is providing campaign information to its 300,000 members.
National surveys will be periodically conducted to test the campaign's effectiveness.
The campaign, Coffee notes, has been long in the planning and has not been "an easy thing to do at all. But doing nothing would be harder."
For more information on "America's Wetland: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana," point your browser to http://americaswetland.com. You may also contact Sidney Coffee at (225) 342-4844, or sidneyc@dnr.state.la.us.
