‘Coastal 5+1’ Initiative Lifts Up Community to Restore Sinking Land
In a land of sinking earth and rising water, the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Coastal 5+1 Initiative is looking beyond BP to the overarching issue of what coastal restoration really means and how it can actually be achieved.
Launched during the first anniversary of the BP oil spill, the Coastal 5+1 Initiative is a comprehensive plan for coastal recovery. Its goal is to unite the coastal Louisiana parishes of Plaquemines, St. Bernard, lower Jefferson, Terrebonne, and Lafourche with New Orleans because “as goes the coastal communities, so goes New Orleans.”
The GNOF’s initiative is based on three areas of action: civic engagement and leadership, sustainable coastal communities, and economic development.
Over the next year the GNOF will be conducting assessments to find out what fishermen and other coastal residents need to know to empower themselves. This process will also help to identify and tap new civic leaders at the local level, who can advocate effectively.
“It’s really getting that grassroots kind of understanding and support and advocacy going for the sorts of issues that we need to push at the state and federal levels — especially the federal level,” emphasizes Dr. Marco Cocito-Monoc, director of regional initiatives for the GNOF.
Dr. Marco Cocito-Monoc, director of regional initiatives for Greater New Orleans Foundation.
The initiative will help coastal residents understand what the obstacles are to becoming sustainable communities, so they can be engaged in finding solutions. Possible solutions may include rebuilding concentrated communities on higher ground, or using new technologies to withstand hurricanes.
Even with the 5+1 push, Cocito-Monoc is reserved when it comes to expected outcomes.
“We are not going to be able to rebuild our coastal communities as much as we need to,” says Cocito-Monoc. “If we are lucky, we will keep our footprint as we have now.”
The final strategy of the Coastal 5+1 Initiative is the largest in scope, and involves exporting the expertise Louisianians will eventually gain from coastal-restoration work.
“The Dutch have become such masters of … managing water that they are now able to export that expertise around the world and make money from it,” explains Cocito-Monoc. So, he asks, why not us?
He suggests Louisiana could follow suit and become experts in coastal restoration, just as the Dutch are in dykes.
The BP oil spill may have turned all eyes toward the Louisiana coast. But with its Coastal 5+1 Initiative, the GNOF keeps the focus on the ultimate prize — coastal restoration.
Category: News
