Louisiana has about 40% of all the coastal wetlands in the U.S. but Louisiana’s wetlands are eroding at the rate of about 25 square miles every year. As a result primarily of the destructive dredging by oil companies that began to accelerate in the 1960s, Isle de Jean Charles, at the most southern edge of Terrebonne Parish, LA, has shrunk from 4 miles wide to a quarter mile wide. Home to Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Native Americans for a couple hundred years, only a few families remain stubbornly clinging to what’s left of their once rich sea-based culture. They were still recovering from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike, and the BP oil disaster may prove to be an even heavier blow to their way of life. In response to the disaster Plenty is focusing its relief efforts on helping these beleaguered native peoples in any way we can. |
 In just the past 5 years, the number of homes on Isle de Jean Charles has dropped from 63 to 25. |
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At the end of May, a group of Native Alaskans, survivors of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill, traveled to Terrebonne Parish, LA to share their experiences with the Native Peoples of coastal Louisiana. They reported that their culture and economy have not recovered. After the BP oil well exploded, a Plenty delegation visited some of our partners in Louisiana who are on the front lines of the oil disaster. |
 At the end of May, a group of Native Alaskans, survivors of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill, traveled to Terrebonne Parish, LA. |
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“Everything is changing: subsidence (the land is sinking), erosion, increased storms... All our answers are short-term solutions. We’re resilient, but it will come to a point where we don’t know how to live with the Earth,because we’re depleting it so quickly. We already see it happening in our coastal communities.”—Theresa Dardar
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 Theresa Dardar |
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| Chief Naquin would like to relocate the most vulnerable native families to a piece of land on higher ground further from the rapidly disappearing coast. He says, “I thought I was going to change the world, but now I find that the world is changing me.” |  Chief Naquin |
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| Plenty International PO Box 394 Summertown, TN 38483 (931) 964-4323 Plenty@plenty.org CFC #11625 |
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