Louisiana s Atchafalaya Basin, the nation’s largest cypress swamp, nurtures an abundant ecosystem and protects a critical coast. But years of exploitation and neglect have made it a “ticking time bomb.”
Originally published on January 14, 2021 11:24 am
A coalition of conservation groups on Friday announced the formation of the Atchafalaya Basin Coalition and sent a letter to Gov. John Bel Edwards imploring him to consider the Louisiana Nature Conservancy as a landowner, rather than a conservation group, when choosing members of a newly-formed task force.
Led by members of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, an environmental advocacy group that has worked in the basin for 16 years and opposes some of the state’s restoration efforts there, the coalition argues that the Nature Conservancy is biased toward defending landowners, in part because it owns land in the basin itself.