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Louisiana Swamp Tours

Boosting Awareness of Wetlands Loss

Tara E. Smith

Captain Thomas “Tom” Billiot steered the Lafitte Skiff down the murky waters of Bayou Segnette through the moss-clad Cypress swamps of southern Louisiana.  Tourists from all corners of the world listened intently as Billiot, with a rich Cajun accent, narrated the journey into the vast wetlands.

“Have you seen any water moccasins?” asked one passenger.

“I guess some of the best water moccasins I’ve seen, I’ve seen inside gators’ jaws,” Billiot explained.  The boat captain picked up a jar next to the “feed the captain’s gator” tip box and showed the amazed passengers a preserved water moccasin.  And of course the curious tourists wanted to know all about the alligators.

“Over the years, I’ve been able to name the gators.  I’ve seen the same ones.  I feed the alligators marshmallows,” Billiot said, holding up a bag of the white puffy treats he keeps for his reptile friends.  He explained that alligators stay hidden during the cold winter months.  In early spring and summer, tourists usually spot numerous alligators during the swamp tour.

Billiot, a native of Louisiana and a licensed captain for more than 20 years, has also fished the abundant waters of Louisiana for most of his life.  He demonstrated his fishing expertise to his fellow passengers as he stopped the boat and checked several of his crab nets along the bayou.

From egrets, blue herons, and nutria to Cajun houseboats, shrimp boats and fishermen in pirogues, the tourists were able to capture a quick glimpse of Louisiana wildlife and culture during their two-hour cruise with Cypress Swamp Tours.  The swamp tour, which departs from Westwego, is about a 20 minute drive from the French Quarter.

However, Billiot not only talked gators, snakes and other swamp creatures most folks expect to hear about during a typical swamp tour, he also talked storm walls, hurricanes and coastal erosion.

“You see the hurricane and flood walls here,” Billiot said, as he pointed to a wall behind the Cypress trees.  “Years ago, the bayou never used to be this wide.  But now, it’s kind of washed out from the storms and all.  In another five or six years, you won’t see any of these trees.  The water will be all the way up to the wall.  It’s not just here on our swamp tour.  It’s all over Louisiana, from here to Texas. It’s the whole bottom of the state.” 

Cypress Academy, the educational division of Cypress Swamp Tours, also offers seminars on a wide variety of environmental preservation and restoration topics throughout the year.  Cypress hopes to educate tourists of their mission – to nurture and restore Louisiana’s wetlands.  And with the growing trend of ecotourism, nature seekers can get a first hand glimpse of Louisiana’s plight by venturing through the wetlands.

According to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Restoration and Management, Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, the vast area where the Gulf of Mexico blends with the state’s many rivers and bayous to form one the of the most productive ecosystems in North America, are facing enormous problems.  Louisiana currently experiences 80 percent of the nation’s coastal wetland loss at a rate of 25 to 35 square miles per year.  Even with the current level of restoration activity, Louisiana could lose another 1,000 square miles of coastal land by the year 2050.  The Gulf of Mexico could advance inland as much as 33 miles in some areas, transforming open land into open water.

Many towns and cities, such as Houma and New Orleans, would be exposed to open marine forces of the Gulf of Mexico without the protective buffer currently provided by the wetlands.  This scale of wetland loss could potentially cost the State of Louisiana and its residents not only their homes and livelihoods, but billions of dollars in commercial and recreational fisheries harvest, mineral revenues, weather borne commerce, and protection from the impacts of hurricanes and tropical storms.  The economic and environmental impacts of such a loss would be felt throughout North America, the Department of Natural Resources said.

“One of the things I’m working on right now and implementing in the next couple of weeks is to train our captains to give a very cogent presentation of the issues that are facing coastal Louisiana and why they’re important to the nation,” Dr. Bob Thomas, director of Loyola Center for Environmental Communications and Louisiana naturalist with Cypress Swamp Tours, said.

“We handle about a hundred thousand people a year on our swamp tour and over a million people a year go on swamp tours…We know we have a real opportunity to educate lots of people about the interconnections with their own states and coastal Louisiana – fisheries, oil and gas exploration, shipping.  Also, the fact that coastal Louisiana contains one of the top three petrochemical plants that provides products which support all types of fabrication in the United States,” Thomas, who has been involved with environmental education associated with coastal erosion for the past 25 years, explained.

“The funding requirements to preserve and restore Louisiana wetlands are beyond the capacity of Louisiana or any single state.  It would take a national effort to save the Louisiana wetlands,” Thomas said.

Thomas referred to “Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana,” a plan which would guide the spending of the money that comes from the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act.  The plan, which was finalized in December 1998, outlines how the Louisiana coast should look in the year 2050 and would cost $14 billion over the next 30 years to implement.

“Coast 2050 means, what is the coast going to look like in 2050.  The whole planning process was how much are we going to lose and it would take $14 billion to save that.  And what does the nation get for that $14 billion?  We feel that the total resources that come from our zone is about $300 billion.  But it only takes $14 billion to conserve that.  We’re talking about a national resource base, not just a Louisiana resource base,” Thomas further explained.

Naturalist Curtis Burnette of Cypress Swamp Tours agrees.  “The best thing that can be done is to educate people, that when legislative actions come along, they will know.  First and foremost you have to have an educated public.  Obviously, it’s going to take a huge amount of money.  That money can’t be sought after if those people don’t care what’s going on,” Burnette said.

“The bayou is used by more and more people.  We want to teach them and let them see.  One of the things I do is with our live animals.  When people have a chance to touch a live animal, they start to connect with living things.  They realize not only is it bad for humans, but there are other things out there.  It’s definitely strong stuff.  They won’t remember all the things, but they will understand the swamps and marsh are in trouble.  And then they go back to the Quarter and have some shrimp or other seafood, that’s a way to impact them.  So when their congressman calls them up to say what do you think about wetlands, they will have something to say,” Burnette said.

Nature-based ecotourism, where the travelers actually get involved in the site they are visiting, continues to rise annually.  In 1997, it increased by 10 to 15 percent annually and was anticipated to account for $12 billion in worldwide tourism-related travel expenditures, according to information provided by Bo Boehringer, communications director for the Louisiana Office of State Parks.

“The primary benefit of ecotourism is that it helps the awareness. It introduces them to wetlands and tells them it’s the primary nursery for fisheries in Louisiana.  If it were not for the wetlands surrounding not only New Orleans to Lake Charles to Calishu….  All of those are dependent on the protection that the wetlands give us,” Carlton Dufrechou, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said.

“Until a decade or so, the common feeling was that wetlands were swamps.  It had kind of that dismal connotation that the Bogie Creek monster lives out there.  It’s a place where tourists can see alligators, but it is much more than that.  The wetland tours allow them to see this is not only the home of the alligator.  If we lose wetlands, we will continue to see a depletion of our wetlands resources,” Dufrechou explained.

“Coast 2050 project, it is in my opinion the most comprehensive look we’ve ever done on Louisiana.  It’s not all roses, it will take a tremendous commitment by not only the state, but also the country.  That is the thrust of the argument.  The wetlands are very valuable to us here, but also with oil,” Dufrechou said.

Dufrechou said the basin foundation sponsors a series of canoe trips and hikes in Pearl River, Honey Island Swamp, and Alligator Bayou near Baton Rouge at a nominal cost. And the primary reason for this mode of ecotourism is to increase awareness on the value of wetlands.

“Even if 2050 were fully implemented next year, we would still see land loss.  The best we can do is at least have enough projects going on so we can keep up with the land loss.  It will not happen overnight.  It will take decades to reach that point.  And it will take a commitment from the country,” Dufrechou said.

David Frugé represents the Department of the Interior on the Federal-State Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force, created in 1990 by Congressional legislation known as the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA or Breaux Act).  Frugé agrees that sustaining coastal Louisiana will take a national commitment.  "What we have here is the Nation's premier coastal wetlands complex, but also its greatest coastal land loss problem.  Thanks to the Breaux Act, we've laid the groundwork for addressing that problem, but an effective response will require a much greater commitment of resources."  CWPPRA provides approximately $50 million a year for coastal protection and restoration projects in Louisiana.

Deborah Schultz, environmental specialist of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, said the big problem Louisiana faces in order to restore coastal Louisiana is lack of funding.

“The people who have settled here, this gumbo culture, is dependent on the wetlands. And if the wetlands go, the culture goes as well. And until we get national attention to this effort, we are not going to get funding,” Schultz explained.

“We’re seeing people from all over the country come here. And when they go out on a swamp tour, they’re seeing the real beauty of Louisiana.  When they hear the story of how it’s being lost, they have an emotional attachment from having seen it and they can receive the message better.  It makes more of an impact,” Schultz said.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Restoration and Management said individuals can make a difference by promoting wetland restoration efforts, attending local meetings, practicing conservation of wetland resources by following fishing and hunting regulations, not littering, and by education.  They can also help by participating in beach cleanups, environmental education programs, field trips to coastal wetlands, and Christmas tree programs.

To learn more about Louisiana’s wetlands, visit the Louisiana Coastal Restoration Website, http://www.LaCoast.gov.

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