MERAUX, La. – Shrouded in morning mist, a grove of young trees stands out behind a pumping station near Lake Borgne, each encased in protective white plastic tubes.

Reaching this and similar locations involves a weekly expedition by organizers who transport volunteers via airboats. They come prepared with a trailer full of essentials, including rubber boots in various sizes and bins of snacks to reward the volunteers’ effort after a long day’s work.

The vision is ambitious: to nurture 30,000 mature trees, such as bald cypress and water tupelo, across these wetland sites. This initiative aims to transform the landscape into a robust natural barrier, reminiscent of its former forested glory. The deep roots of these native trees are expected to stabilize the ground around New Orleans, which continues to sink below sea level, while also providing shelter for wildlife and fortifying the city against future storms.

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which claimed over 1,000 lives and inflicted more than $100 billion in damages, led to the loss of much of this natural defense. Since then, dedicated efforts by local environmental groups have focused on land restoration. As they near the conclusion of this long-running project, organizers reflect on the progress made from once depleted marshlands to a more resilient ecosystem.

“Our work is part of a broader movement to counter the ‘doomerism’ mindset and prove that recovery is achievable,” explained Christina Lehew, executive director of Common Ground Relief, one of the organizations spearheading the tree planting efforts. “While we may never fully restore the wetlands to their past splendor, we can certainly reclaim a significant part of them.”

This collaborative effort among organizations is driven by the shared goal of revitalizing wetlands through extensive tree planting initiatives.

In other locations around New Orleans, cypress trees planted years ago tower over dense thickets rich with other native plants. They tell the story of what could have been, and what restorers are trying to bring back.

Before the logging industry, before the oil and gas industry, before anyone built levees to contain the Mississippi River, the Delta naturally ebbed and flowed and flooded as the river deposited sediment on the Gulf Coast. The plants that thrived in that ecosystem formed protective estuaries.

But then the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 burst through levees in dozens of places. Hundreds of people died and the water caused catastrophic damage across several states. After that, the government initiated a new era of levee building. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had also constructed a shipping channel called the Mississippi River—Gulf Outlet Canal (MRGO), which ultimately became a path for Katrina’s storm surge into the city of New Orleans.

Those engineering decisions worsened Katrina’s destruction. They allowed saltwater into freshwater ecosystems around the city, poisoning many of the trees. And so the city was exposed to future hurricanes, and lost the living guardians whose roots held the land in place.

In 2009, the MRGO was shut down to cut off further saltwater intrusion, and environmental groups started reforesting. Eventually, about five years ago, several organizations came together as a collective to apply for federal and state funding for a bigger project. Spreading two large grants across different volunteer bases, planting in different areas and using different techniques, they’re getting closer to that 30,000-tree goal. One of the largest groups, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, has planted about 10,000 of its 15,000-tree quota, said Andrew Ferris, senior coordinator for their native plants program. They’ll finish by next year, he said.

“In our wildest dreams we never thought we’d be able to plant some of the areas that we are now planting,” said Blaise Pezold, who started planting trees around 2009 and is now coastal and environmental program director for the Meraux Foundation, one of the partner organizations. “It was thought to be too low, too salty, Katrina messed it up too much, and we would have to focus on areas that were easier to get into.”

The closing of the MRGO and the drop in salinity levels changed all that. “The Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective has kind of allowed us to be very adventurous in the sites we choose,” Pezold added.

A way of processing grief, and rebuilding for the future

For many of the organizers in Louisiana who have been helping with restoration and recovery efforts, the project has been a way to cope with living in the wake of a natural disaster.

Katrina hit the day after Ashe Burke’s 8th birthday. “It still affects everybody that went through it, and … it changed us all. I mean, we had our lives ripped out from underneath us in a day,” said Burke, the wetlands restoration specialist for Common Ground Relief, where Lehew also works. “It still does hurt in some ways, you know? But we gotta keep going on and the sun rises in the morning.”

That’s also something important to teach the next generation, said Rollin Black, who works with the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, one of the tree-planting partner organizations. He also has family in New Orleans, and he said restoring the environment has been a way to act on the problems he saw. Seeing kids participate helps.

“That brings a little bit of joy to my heart that they’re actually inspired by what we’re doing. So maybe they could come back or maybe they have some reason to live in New Orleans,” he said.

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Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

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