Grass Roots – Students from 40 schools across 18 parishes are helping plant Longleaf Pine, Tupelo Gum, Swamp Red Maple and other native seedlings and grasses along the Louisiana coastline as part of one of the state’s most widespread anti-erosion efforts.
Students from 40 schools across 18 parishes are helping plant Longleaf Pine, Tupelo Gum, Swamp Red Maple and other native seedlings and grasses along the Louisiana coastline as part of one of the state’s most widespread anti-erosion efforts. Called Coastal Roots, the LSU program is funded by various environmental institutes and training programs as well as alumni through the LSU Foundation.
Since 2000, Dr. Pam Blanchard and her team have overseen a Herculean effort to repopulate the coast with protective flora.
“So far, we’ve put more than 70,000 plants in the ground,” says Blanchard, an associate professor of science education at the university and the director of Coastal Roots. “All planted by schoolchildren.”
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Blanchard believes awareness is the first and most necessary key to making the progress needed to protect Louisiana’s endangered coast, the area deemed most susceptible to land loss in the entire nation. A significant portion of the proceeds from the Uplifting the Coast Festival will be donated to Coastal Roots, and Blanchard says moving the event to Baton Rouge was a smart choice.
“Other than the Wetlands Tent at Louisiana Earth Day and the Louisiana Sea Grant’s Ocean Commotion—which is only open to pre-K through eighth-grade students—there are no other festivals in Baton Rouge or the surrounding area that I know of that deal with coastal issues,” Blanchard says. “People in Grand Isle are well aware of the issues they face with the coming of each storm season. In terms of growing the event’s popularity, I think that the Baton Rouge metro area will attract a wide variety of interested people.”
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