The land of the native tribes of Louisiana is a source of physical, spiritual, and political autonomy. As this series has emphasized, while all of coastal Louisiana is threatened by rising sea levels and subsidence, native tribes are at the forefront of these risks.
Rising sea levels worldwide are a major cause of land loss because of climate change. Coastal Louisiana has experienced the brunt of sea levels as floods disproportionately affect Indigenous communities.
Subsidence is another major cause of land loss. Subsidence is the sinking of land, which is not caused by sea level rise but is just as dangerous.
Indigenous settlement around Mississippi River began long before European colonization. But after colonization, the levee system changed the flow of the river and led to land loss and subsidence. Between 1932 and 2010, Louisiana lost an amount of land equivalent to the size of Delaware.
Industries are also contributing to subsidence. Drilling for oil, gas, and groundwater are leading causes of Louisiana’s sinking land.
As sea level rise and subsidence cause land to rapidly disappear, native people are displaced further and further into Louisiana. For example, the coastal Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe has lost 98% of its land since the 1950s. Not only is their land threatened, but natural resources are threatened as well. These factors are causing tribes to shrink in land, resources, and population. Still, their support is not growing at the same rate.
While industrial corporations worsen land loss on a local and global scale, people must step up to fight climate change. Sea level rise targets native communities now, but as it picks up pace we will all face its wrath. The only way to save native tribes in the present and ourselves in the future is to fight industrial degradation with local prosperity. Spending money at sustainable businesses, supporting local activism, and investing in a sustainable economy are all ways we can prevent the sinking land and rising water from erasing our home’s history.
Love Your City provides opportunities to not only create a sustainable lifestyle, but a sustainable economy. See how Love Your City can improve your green and moral values.
Love Your City acknowledges that the land of New Orleans, which we inhabit, is in the original ancestral homelands of the native tribes of Louisiana. We pay respect to the native tribes of Louisiana in the past, present, and future, and will continue to honor and affirm their presence on their homeland.