Cutting Our Own Throat

The Atchafalaya Basin in the southernmost part of Louisiana is about ten times larger than the city of Chicago. It is a fantastic area of wetlands that is home to more than 300 migrating species of birds. In fact, half of all migrating birds in North America use the basin to nest, mate, and rest up on their journey. Besides that important ecological function, the wetlands act as a buffer from ferocious storms such as hurricanes. Throughout this basin stand thousands of one-hundred foot tall cypress trees, some over 500 years old. A stand of cypress just the size of a football field can lessen a twenty-foot high storm surge by ninety percent. In other words, it acts as an excellent defense against hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina’s full force was directed at this basin, not at New Orleans as some people believe. Despite the intense winds, these wetlands lost no cypress trees. None. That’s because the trees are very strong and lessen the impact of storms surges, thus protecting the inhabitants of the area from devastating hurricanes that come ashore. Animals including bobcats, foxes, alligators, minks, armadillos, coyotes and other species make the Atchafalaya their permanent home. So why are human beings cutting down these life-saving cypress trees at the rate of 20,000 trees annually?
Most of the clear cutting is legal, some not. Of course the companies responsible for such devastation are required to replant the cypress trees when they are done reaping the hardwood. The only problem with that is the new saplings never live. They die soon after they are planted because of an incursion of salt water from the Gulf of Mexico that seeps into the wetlands after each tree is harvested. Bottom line: cut down a cypress tree and it’s gone forever.
If the onslaught continues, Louisiana’s strongest barrier between it and a hurricane will disappear within twenty years, leaving that area naked of any protection from the unforgiving sea.
One final irony…While the state of Louisiana is begging the federal government for funds to shore up its buffer zones along its coastline, the state is allowing the best defense against another hurricane to slowly disappear.
So what is the cypress used for? Mulch. That’s right. The stuff that homeowners spread around their flowerbeds and gardens, that’s the main use. Hey, only in present day America, eh?