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Why is Victoria worried about marshes?
Growing up in coastal Louisiana, every summer my family would go visit my mother’s homeplace in La Fourche Parish. We would surf fish off the barrier island Grand Isle. The beach there, this wisp of an island, is not like Myrtle Beach or the Jersey Shore. It’s local. It’s a bit rough around the edges. It smells of saltwater and dead fish. And yet, it was our island. Every year we visited, we had to search for the beach—it always seemed to show up in a new place. One year it was behind a hedge of tall grasses. Another year, it was hiding below concrete bricks shaped like an amphitheater. Another year, Christmas trees formed the barrier reef.
Growing up in coastal Louisiana, every summer my family would go visit my mother’s homeplace in La Fourche Parish. We would surf fish off the barrier island Grand Isle. The beach there, this wisp of an island, is not like Myrtle Beach or the Jersey Shore. It’s local. It’s a bit rough around the edges. It smells of saltwater and dead fish. And yet, it was our island. Every year we visited, we had to search for the beach—it always seemed to show up in a new place. One year it was behind a hedge of tall grasses. Another year, it was hiding below concrete bricks shaped like an amphitheater. Another year, Christmas trees formed the barrier reef.
Eventually, I learned these were efforts to fight erosion, the washing away of the beach. However, I didn’t understand the larger problem that all those marshes we drove over to get to the beach were suffering and withering away as well. From heel to toe, the boot of Louisiana is subsiding, and the levees along the Mississippi River have a lot to do with that situation.
Louisiana has lost more than 2,000 square miles of land—nearly the size of the state of Delaware—in the Mississippi River Delta and along its coast. Football fields of marshland are vanishing at a rate of one every 100 minutes. The devastation of this vital natural infrastructure for a coastal region is brought on by a variety of factors including: levees preventing sediment distribution, upriver dams holding back that sediment, and invasive species disrupting natural habitats. These and other man-made interventions on the Delta and its connected coastline are having huge consequences for people, land, water, and wildlife that depend on it.
Victoria (right) surveys an area that is losing
land within the Mississippi River Delta in Louisiana.
Victoria Bradford Strybicki is the founder and artistic director at A House Unbuilt, which is a member organization of the Mississippi River Network. Her work includes telling stories of people along the Mississippi River. She explains, "We are not unbuilding houses, per se. Through deep listening practices, storytelling, and dance we unbuild the architecture that houses our everyday lives."
Take one more step: When you give to the Mississippi River Network you are helping us implement solutions that help communities from New Orleans up to the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota. We work with River Citizens and member organizations, like Victoria and A House Unbuilt, to help protect and restore vital River ecosystems including wetlands and marshes.
Will you help us reach our Earth Month (April) goal of $2,500 to help the wellbeing of the people, land, water, and wildlife of the River?
Levees and other man-made interventions
have huge consequences for people, land,
water, and wildlife that depend on the River.
MORE ABOUT
1 Mississippi is a national public program designed to educate, engage, and inspire people to take action to protect the Mississippi River. By signing up as River Citizens, people show their commitment to the River and are ready to take action on its behalf. Since 2009, the program has built a community of 20,000 River Citizens and inspired thousands of actions. 1 Mississippi is implemented by the Mississippi River Network; a coalition of 60 organizations working together from Headwaters to the Gulf to protect the people, land, water, and wildlife of the United States' greatest river.
Direct questions or comments to info@1mississippi.org
What's Next?
1) Learn more about issues and solutions facing the River on our website at www.1mississippi.org
2) Invite your friends, family, and colleagues to join the community and become River Citizens
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5) Make a donation. Your support helps us restore and protect our Mississippi River.
Thank you for signing up as a River Citizen! Together, we are making a big difference.
MORE ABOUT
1 Mississippi is a national public program designed to educate, engage, and inspire people to take action to protect the Mississippi River. By signing up as River Citizens, people show their commitment to the River and are ready to take action on its behalf. Since 2009, the program has built a community of 20,000 River Citizens and inspired thousands of actions. 1 Mississippi is implemented by the Mississippi River Network; a coalition of 60 organizations working together from Headwaters to the Gulf to protect the people, land, water, and wildlife of the United States' greatest river.
Direct questions or comments to info@1mississippi.org.