In the News
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The news outlet links below represent many viewpoints, aggregated here for reference purposes only. The Louisiana Office of Community Development makes no claim as to the veracity or accuracy of any views contained herein.
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A Louisiana Tribe Is Now Officially A Community Of Climate RefugeesSource: Huff Post Science Date: 02/12/2016 Deep in the bayous of Louisiana, about 80 miles southwest of New Orleans, lies the Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny swath of land that’s all but vanished into the Gulf of Mexico. |
Louisiana Tribe Officially Becomes America's First Climate RefugeesSource: Weather.com Date: 02/22/2016 French-speaking Indians who live deep in Louisiana bayou, some 50 miles south of New Orleans, became the United States' first official climate refugees last week when the federal government awarded them $48 million to relocate. |
Louisiana's vanishing island: the climate 'refugees' resettling for $52mSource: The Guardian Date: 03/15/2016 Wenceslaus Billiot, an 88-year-old native of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, remembers growing up on a much different island than the two-mile sliver of his ancestral home that remains today. |
Native American Tribe Gets Federal Funds to Flee Rising SeasSource: Inside Climate News Date: 03/16/2016 In a disappearing section of Louisiana coastline, the people who call Isle De Jean Charles home are moving to save their community and culture. |
Native American tribe to relocate from Louisiana coast as sea levels riseSource: Reuters News Service/reprinted in Baton Rouge Business Report Date: 03/17/2016 A small Native American community in coastal Louisiana is to be resettled after losing nearly all its land partly due to rising seas, a first in the United States. |
Rising sea levels force U.S. to resettle Native American tribeSource: PBS News Hour Date: 03/17/2016 A Native American tribe located in coastal Louisiana will become the first community in U.S. history to be relocated due, in part, to rising sea levels, said Marion McFadden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Thursday. |
The First U.S. Climate RefugeesSource: Bloomberg View Date: 03/20/2016 Early one morning at the beginning of March, two black Chevy Suburbans filled with federal and state development officials left New Orleans for Louisiana's coast. Almost two hours later, they turned onto Island Road, a low spit of asphalt nearly three miles long with water on either side. |
The lucky ones: Native American tribe receives $48m to flee climate changeSource: The Guardian Date: 03/23/2016 In Louisiana, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe has been awarded a natural disaster grant to resettle away from their sinking land. But other indigenous Americans have no way out |
Native Community Will Move to Higher Ground in LouisianaSource: Triple Pundit Date: 04/04/2016 A native community in southern Louisiana hopes to make a historic move to higher ground, now that it has received a major federal grant for relocation. Awaiting finalization from the state, the tribe hopes to relocate within the next few years. |
'There's no more land'Source: CNN Date: 04/08/2016 Wenceslaus Billiot, an 89-year-old with suede-soft eyes and a bayou-French accent, asked me to follow him onto the second-story balcony of his stork-legged house here in the southern Louisiana marshland. |
Isle de Jean Charles tribe looks at moving entire community north in first-of-its-kind test caseSource: The Advocate Date: 04/09/2016 Looking out from the house he built in 1959 with lumber brought by boat to this island at the south end of Terrebonne Parish, Wenceslaus Billiot remembers when the view from his back porch was thick forest and solid marsh. |
Who gets to move off the island? Local American Indian tribes disagreeSource: Houma Courier/Daily Comet Date: 04/23/2016 Delegates from an American Indian tribe living on Isle de Jean Charles and state officials disagree over how to spend millions of dollars intended to move the island's residents away from the encroaching Gulf of Mexico. |
Resettling the First American Climate RefugeesSource: New York Times Date: 05/02/2016 A $48 million grant for Isle de Jean Charles, La., is the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the effects of climate change. |
First US climate refugees get $48 million to moveSource: Christian Science Monitor Date: 05/03/2016 A first-of-its-kind, $48 million federal grant aims to move the entire community of the sinking Isle de Jean Charles, La., to a drier place. |
US Spends Nearly $50 Million To Relocate First American Climate RefugeesSource: Tech Times Date: 05/04/2016 Climate change, particularly unprecedented sea level rise, is already creating refugees in the United States. |
Preservation in Print April 2016: Coastal ResilienceSource: Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans Date: 05/05/2016 Wenceslaus Billiot stands on his front porch on the Isle de Jean Charles in Terrebonne Parish. Water laps at the base of a small levee 20 feet from the back door of his home, which sits perched on pilings 11 feet above a manicured lawn. |
Chased from home by climate changeSource: OXFAM America Date: 05/10/2016 Southeast Louisiana is in the news once again—not for a hurricane or a flood this time, but for efforts to protect communities dealing with the blows of these disasters, along with the impacts of climate change. |
Native Americans' Relocation From Louisiana Home: 'First Climate Change Refugees'Source: WWNO-NPR: Weekend Edition Saturday Date: 05/14/2016 Members of a Native American community in south Louisiana are retreating from their coastal home and trying to preserve their culture in the process. |
Tiny Louisiana Community Is Rapidly Vanishing Due to Rising SeasSource: HowStuffWorks Date: 05/24/2016 The people of Isle de Jean Charles have lived off the waters surrounding their small Louisiana town for nearly two centuries now. Soon the waters will take the town from them. |
The First Official Climate Refugees in the U.S. Race Against TimeSource: National Geographic Date: 05/25/2016 A Native American tribe struggles to hold on to their culture in a Louisiana bayou while their land slips into the Gulf of Mexico. |
Icebergs on the Bayou, $48 million Grant reported as 1st official US climate refugeesSource: Blasting News (UK) Date: 06/02/2016 On January 21, 2016 the U.S. Department of HUD announced the winners of its $1 Billion National Disaster Resilience Competition. The State of Louisiana and The City of New Orleans combined to receive over $233 Million. |
Louisiana Climate RefugeesSource: Yale Climate Connections Date: 06/13/2016 Roch Naquin grew up with his five brothers and sisters on the Isles de Jean Charles in Louisiana. The island supported about a hundred families of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe. |
Louisiana’s Vanishing Island: America’s First Climate RefugeesSource: EcoWatch Date: 06/28/2016 Residents of a Louisiana island are among the first American climate refugees. Encroaching water is forcing them off the land they have lived on for generations. Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, has been inhabited by tribal communities since the Trail of Tears era. |
Meet the residents of Louisiana’s disappearing coastal communitiesSource: PBS NewsHour Date: 07/30/2016 Sinking land, rising seas and an increased storm surge have all contributed to coastal erosion in the bayou. Decades of construction on oil and gas canals have also played a role. |
Native community in Louisiana relocates as land washes awaySource: PBS NewsHour Date: 07/30/2016 Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana has lost 98 percent of its land to coastal erosion caused by sinking land and exacerbated by rising seas and increased storm surges. The tribal community that lives there will be the first to receive federal tax dollars to help them relocate in response to climate change. Hari Sreenivasan reports. |
The Toughest Question in Climate Change: Who Gets Saved?Source: Bloomberg View Date: 08/29/2016 Last fall, two towns at opposite ends of the country entered a new kind of contest run by the federal government. At stake was their survival: Each is being consumed by the rising ocean, and winning money from Washington would mean the chance to move to higher ground. |
Isle De Jean Charles: Louisiana Community To Be Climate Change RefugeesSource: Sky News, UK Date: 08/30/2016 A US community is given a government grant to leave, as climate change is helping to make their homes unlivable |
Relocating Coastal Tribe Indicates Future Challenges For LouisianaSource: WWNO Date: 09/07/2016 Sea level rise and land loss is affecting communities all over the world, not just in Louisiana. But Louisiana has one of the first communities that will be entirely resettled as a result: the Isle de Jean Charles. |
Stay or go? Isle de Jean Charles families wrestle with the seaSource: The Times-Picayune Date: 09/13/2016 The message scrawled on the whitewashed plywood sign was clear, even if it was only one man's perspective: "We are not moving off this island. If some people want to move, they can go. But leave us alone." It was signed, "Edison Jr." |
How Louisiana Is Relocating a Community Threatened by Climate ChangeSource: Curbed: Urban Planning Date: 09/29/2016 Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, a small coastal island in the Gulf of Mexico, is currently the site of a far-reaching experiment that may shape how the government, at every level, thinks about one of the looming issues of climate change: resettlement. |
Washed AwaySource: Full Measure Date: 10/16/2016 A small Louisiana community is part of a groundbreaking project to relocate together at taxpayer expense |
Leaving ParadiseSource: The Weather Channel Date: 11/07/2016 Thanks to a federal grant that made them the nation’s first “climate refugees,” the people of Isle de Jean Charles will be given a chance to move to higher ground, away from the rising water that threatens their two-century-old Gulf Coast community. But residents say that they only feel at home when they are near water and family... |
The people of Isle de Jean Charles aren't the country's first climate refugeesSource: The Lens Date: 12/06/2016 Isle de Jean Charles is endangered for the same reasons that much of coastal Louisiana has become part of the Gulf of Mexico: The land is sinking, river levees are preventing it from being replenished, oil and gas drilling accelerated erosion--and on top of that, seas are rising. |
America gets its first group of climate refugeesSource: Marketplace Date: 02/01/2017 America has its political refugees and its economic refugees. And now, for the first time, it has climate refugees. |
when is it time to retreat from climate change?Source: The New Yorker Date: 03/27/2017 Isle de Jean Charles, a stitch of land on the tattered southern fringe of Louisiana, is thin and getting thinner. Battered by storms and sea-level rise, and deprived of revitilizing sediment from the Mississippi River, its surface area has shrunk by ninety-eight percent since 1955, and its remaining three hundred and twenty acres can flood in... |
A new home: Work continues in effort to relocate island residentsSource: The Daily Comet Date: 04/08/2017 Rita Falgout grew up on Isle de Jean Charles, left and returned after 40 years. When she came back for good, she said, it looked totally different. "The island is not going to be here for much longer," she said in an interview there last week. "If I can move up, I'm going." |
Facing Climate Change on the Louisiana Bayous—in picturesSource: The Guardian Date: 05/27/2017 Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana is home to a Native American community who fished, hunted, trapped and farmed the land. But since 1955, more than 90% of the island's original land mass has washed away, the loss caused by logging, oil exploration, hurricanes and ineffective flood control. |
An Island in Louisiana's Bayou is Vanishing; And its residents are fleeing to higher groundSource: Here & Now Date: 06/05/2017 Since the middle of the last century more than 90 percent of Isle de Jean Charleshas dissolved into the southern Louisiana bayou. The island, which is connected to the outside world by a road that's known to flood in perfect weather, is home to a tribe of Native americans who have fished and hunted there since the 1800s. |
First US climate change refugees prepare to relocate in louisianaSource: Herald Sun Date: 06/12/2017 Rising sea levels attributed to climate change is forcing a whole American town to relocate, and many others may soon have to follow. In January the US Government announced it would spend $63 million to help residents of Isle de Jean Charles in the southern state of Louisiana to move from their homes as coastal erosion threatens to sink the entire... |
As This Town Slips into Sea, a $48 Million Rescue Runs into ObstaclesSource: Climate Changed Date: 07/03/2017 There was a fight coming and everyone knew it, so the reverend asked his guests to start with a prayer. "Dear Lord, here we gather to consider ways and means that we might be relocated," began Roch Naquin, who lives in Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana a town slipping into the sea and the site of a radical federal policy experiment. |
Sites for Relocating island residents narrowed to threeSource: DailyComet.com Date: 07/11/2017 Isle de Jean Charles residents and state officials have narrowed possible relocation sites for the community to three in the Schriever area. |
Let's Beat ItSource: Landscape Architecture Magazine Date: 09/19/2017 In Southern Louisiana, Evans + Lighter Landscape Architecture is helping the people of Isle de Jean Charles move away from a disappearing coast. |
CSRS to design new community for first U.S. 'climate refugees'Source: Business Report Date: 09/25/2017 State officials have selected Baton Rouge-based CSRS Inc. to design a new community for residents of Isle de Jean Charles, who last year became the first "climate refugees" in the U.S. |
State Names CSRS Inc. as Master Planner to Oversee Design of Isle De Jean Charles Resettlement CommunityDate: 09/25/2017 Next Phase of High-Profile Resilient Community Plan Begins Now Louisiana’s Office of Community Development is announcing that CSRS Inc. will serve as the master planner to design a new community for the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. The firm won a competitive proposal process as part of a project that continues to garner attention as... |
saving coastal communities requires a community-based approachSource: Brink News Date: 10/31/2017 Hurricanes Harvey and Irma exposed how vulnerable our communities are to extreme climate events. With the two storms destroying thousands of houses and causing well over $200 billion worth of losses, questions have been raised, particularly about how we don't seem to be doing enough to move homes out of harm's way. |
those who remain on this island in louisiana's bayou are barely clinging to what's leftSource: Public Radio East Date: 11/23/2017 Since the middle of the last century more than 90 percent of Isle de Jean Charles has dissolved into the southern Louisiana bayou. The state predicts sea level rise and rampant coastal erosion will make the island unlivable in the coming years. |
beyond the beltway: louisiana isle home to the first us climate refugeesSource: CGTN Date: 11/30/2017 The world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is expected to walk away from the Paris Climate Accord. How will U.S. President Trump's decision affect the world and the people in his own country? |
here's where residents of sinking isle de jean charles will relocateSource: Nola.com Date: 12/19/2017 A sugar farm outside Houma has been selected as the new home for the dozens of people remaining on Isle de Jean Charles, an island rapidly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. An experimental program aimed at transplating the small, mostly Native American community to safer ground has zeroed in on a 515-acre farm about 40 miles north of the island in... |
state chooses site near thibodaux to relocate isle de jean charles climate refugeesSource: The Advocate Date: 12/21/2017 After nearly two years of deliberations, the state has entered negotiations to purchase a 515-acre sugar cane farm near Thibodaux where officials hope to resettle the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, an island in south Terrebonne Parish that is quickly sinking under rising seas. |
Sense of Urgency Surrounds Isle de Jean Charles RelocationSource: Houma Today Date: 01/07/2018 As negotiations take place for a relocation site for residents and former residents of Isle de Jean Charles, there's concern about this year's hurricane season. |
Left To Louisiana’s Tides, A Village Fights For TimeSource: New York Times Date: 02/24/2018 JEAN LAFITTE, LA. — From a Cessna flying 4,000 feet above Louisiana’s coast, what strikes you first is how much is already lost. |
Climate change threatens to wash away couple’s historySource: CNN Date: 03/02/2018 Seventy years ago, on the day Wenceslaus and Denicia Billiot got married, their wedding party danced along a road that ran from one end of Isle de Jean Charles to the other. |
on the louisiana coast, a native community sinks slowly into the seaSource: Yale Environment 360 Date: 03/15/2018 The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians of southern Louisiana have been called America's first climate refugees. But two years after receiving federal funding to move to higher ground, the tribe is stuck in limbo, waiting for new homes as the water inches closer to their doors. |
State is buying Isle de Jean Charles relocation site for $11.7 millionSource: The Times Picayune Date: 03/20/2018 |
Shrinking island in Louisiana forcing residents to moveSource: New York Post Date: 03/21/2018 NEW ORLEANS — The effects of global warming can be seen and touched in Louisiana, where officials have begun buying higher ground to relocate an entire town in a bayou being swallowed by higher seas. |
the perils of climate migration: a cautionary tale from louisianaSource: Climate Liability News Date: 03/21/2018 Once a sprawling island, Isle de Jean Charles today is a mere sliver of what it used to be, more than 98 percent of its land has been swept into the Gulf of Mexico over the past 60 years by an increase in severe storms and rising seas. It's why the tiny community was awarded the first-of-its-kind $48.3 million federal grant in 2016 to resettle... |
america's first climate change refugees are preparing to leave an island that will disappear under the sea in the next few yearsSource: The Independent Date: 04/01/2018 ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, Louisiana -- America comes to an end here. |
Louisiana 'islanders' find a new home beyond the waterSource: Thomson Reuters Foundation News Date: 04/21/2018 Standing in the long grass on the land where he was born, with the sea now lapping just meters away, Chief Albert Naquin remembers Isle de Jean Charles as a wonderful place to grow up. |
forced to move: climate change already displacing u.s. communitiesSource: Link TV Date: 04/26/2018 The role of climate change in human displacement and migration is being cited by experts as the number one global threat of the 21st century. |
Louisiana's Managed Retreat: Isle de Jean CharlesSource: Smarter Communities Media Date: 05/08/2018 |
'Climate refugees': Gulf Coast isle becomes test case with push to relocate residentsSource: The Washington Times Date: 06/05/2018 |
Prospects Are Looking Up for This Gulf Coast Tribe Relocating to Higher GroundSource: Smithsonian Magazine Date: 08/09/2018 As Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles slips away, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe plans community renewal and a museum for their new home. |
Don't Label Them Climate Change Refugees, Says a Louisiana Planner, They're PioneersSource: Common Edge Date: 08/23/2018 In Louisiana, real estate is a commodity. According to the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, more than 1,900 square miles have been lost since the 1930s, and an additional 4,120 square miles could be lost over the next 50 years. |
Confronting the Costs of Coastal Land LossSource: Route Fifty Date: 11/08/2018 The Louisiana coast is disappearing, acres of land eroding away every day. It’s a well known fact, which for years has prompted commissions, studies and development of new infrastructure to rechannel Mississippi River sediment back into the wetlands where it is needed. |
State of Louisiana Buys Land for Isle De Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 01/09/2019 The Louisiana Land Trust on behalf of the Office of Community Development is purchasing 515 acres of farmland in the Schriever area of Terrebonne Parish to serve as the resettlement site for the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. The $11.7 million purchase continues the resettlement of the residents from their island community in lower Terrebonne... |
State closes purchase of land for Isle de Jean Charles climate refugeesSource: The Advocate Date: 01/10/2019 The state has closed on the $11.7 million purchase of a 515-acre tract of land near Thibodaux that will be the new home of the current residents of Isle de Jean Charles, whose narrow strip of land is under threat from the rising Gulf of Mexico. |
98% of this Louisiana community has disappearedSource: YouTube Date: 02/12/2019 CNN's Bill Weir went to Isle de Jean Charles on the Louisiana coast as residents grapple with moving their community inland as water levels surrounding the island continue to rise. |
The Feds are spending $48 million to move his village. But he doesn't want to go.Source: CNN Date: 02/12/2019 The plans are grand -- a brand new community with homes, baseball fields, fishing ponds, a meeting hall and a solar farm to generate electricity to sell. |
State of La Selects Site for Isle De Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 03/20/2019 Residents of the environmentally at-risk Isle de Jean Charles are a step closer to a resilient and historically contextual resettlement community. The Louisiana Office of Community Development is starting the process of purchasing a 515-acre tract of high ground near Schriever in northern Terrebonne Parish for $11.7 million. Today’s... |
The Feds are spending $48 million to move his village. But he doesn't want to go.Source: CNN Date: 04/02/2019 Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana (CNN) -- The plans are grand -- a brand new community with homes, baseball fields, fishing ponds, a meeting hall and a solar farm to generate electricity to sell. |
On a sinking Louisiana island, many aren’t ready to leaveSource: Los Angeles Times Date: 04/23/2019 This island will cease to exist. That much seems certain. |
Tribal chief on Isle de Jean Charles says it's time to leaveSource: nola.com Date: 06/25/2019 Just a week after Hurricane Gustav destroyed Isle de Jean Charles in Terrebone Parish, residents Virgil Dardar, left, and Chris Brunet, back center, stand outside their raised home with Albert Naquin, who is the Chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians on the island. |
Native Americans may lose their homes to rising waters on Louisiana islandSource: CBS News Date: 08/21/2019 Tropical Storm Chantal, churning in the north Atlantic, is no threat to land at the moment. But it's expected to be an above-average hurricane season, which is bad news for Native Americans on a small island off the Louisiana coast. |
The People of the Isle de Jean Charles Are Louisiana’s First Climate Refugees—but They Won’t Be the LastSource: NRDC Date: 09/23/2019 Whether and how to uproot communities are difficult and painful questions, and we need to get better at answering them. |
22 Minutes In The Life Of Louisiana's Climate RefugeesSource: HUFFPOST Date: 11/05/2019 In "Lowland Kids," two teenagers grapple with leaving an island that's sinking before their very eyes. |
Climate Exodus: Movement of the PeopleSource: JDSUPRA Date: 11/13/2019 In 1955, the island community of Isle de Jean Charles, some 80 miles south of New Orleans, covered 22,000 acres. |
Application Deadline Set for Island Residents Eligible for Homes in Isle de Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 01/14/2020 The Louisiana Office of Community Development has set Jan. 31 as the application deadline for residents of Isle de Jean Charles eligible for either a new home in The New Isle community or an existing home in Louisiana. The Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement is part of a federally funded, first-of-its kind effort to move a community of island... |
Louisiana tribes file complaint with United Nations over U.S. inaction on climate changeSource: nola.com Date: 01/16/2020 Four coastal Louisiana tribes that claim the U.S. government has violated their human rights by failing to take action on climate change submitted a formal complaint Wednesday to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. |
Deadline set for residents of vanishing Isle de Jean Charles to apply for relocationSource: nola.com Date: 01/17/2020 Residents of a sinking Louisiana island have until the end of the month to apply for a new home under a first-of-its-kind federal program to help people retreat from the effects of climate change. |
The Last Teenagers on Isle de Jean Charles, An Island Climate Change Is Washing AwaySource: Teen Vogue Date: 02/12/2020 Juliette Brunet and her family live on an island that is shrinking as Louisiana’s sea levels rise. |
As Gulf swallows Louisiana island, displaced tribe fears the futureSource: The Daily Advertiser Date: 02/27/2020 It’s all but assumed this island will one day disappear beneath the waves. |
Why is Isle de Jean Charles disappearing? A timeline of land lossSource: USA Today Date: 02/27/2020 A 14-year-old Jean Charles Naquin and his family arrive in New Orleans aboard the Le Saint-Remi, the fourth of seven ships that, in 1785, carried French immigrants to Louisiana. Most were Acadians previously exiled from Canada who failed to build a life in France. |
As Gulf swallows island, displaced tribe fears futureSource: houmatoday.com Date: 03/02/2020 The state is three years into an ambitious $48 million plan to move Isle de Jean Charles residents to higher ground. Here is a look at the tiny community’s the past, present and potential future. |
Stay or Go? Some island residents struggle to decideSource: houmatoday.com Date: 03/02/2020 The new Isle de Jean Charles will be no isle at all. Instead, it’s a 550-acre sugar-cane field an hour’s drive north of the coast in Schriever. |
Lowland Kids | Climate Change Threatens Two Teenagers' Family HomeSource: YouTube Date: 05/08/2020 As climate change erases the Louisiana coast, the last two teenagers on Isle de Jean Charles fight to stay on an island that's been their family home for generations. |
State Accepting Resettlement Applications from Former Residents of Isle De Jean CharlesDate: 06/22/2020 1/27/2021 Update: The call for applications described in this press release is for former island residents who moved off of the island prior to Hurricane Isaac. These former residents may be eligible for participation in the program’s Option B. The deadline for current and post-Isaac residents to apply for Options A and D passed on... |
How lessons from Isle de Jean Charles could guide federal climate migration planningSource: nola.com Date: 08/16/2020 The relocation of Isle de Jean Charles’ residents from their disappearing island could help the federal government develop a model for moving more people away from rising seas, stronger storms and other effects of climate change, according to an auditor's report to Congress. |
U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to ‘Unavoidable’ Relocation of Entire NeighborhoodsSource: The New York Times Date: 08/26/2020 This week’s one-two punch of Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Marco may be extraordinary, but the storms are just two of nine to strike Texas and Louisiana since 2017 alone, helping to drive a major federal change in how the nation handles floods. |
Louisiana’s population is already moving to escape climate catastropheSource: Quartz Date: 09/01/2020 In the 19th and early 20th centuries, St. Tammany parish was a rural, sparsely populated corner of southeastern Louisiana best known for sawmills and a smattering of fancy resorts. |
Preserving Our Place: Isle de Jean CharlesSource: NPQ Date: 10/19/2020 It’s a beautiful warm morning in south Louisiana, as I travel down to my home, Isle de Jean Charles—“The Island.” |
Fading Away: Louisiana's Battle Against Coastal ErosionSource: KATC3 Date: 11/23/2020 A lattice work of marsh and canals, the Louisiana coastline, is vanishing. A mixture of saltwater intrusion and sinking land has contributed to one of the fastest disappearing places on the planet, and an existential threat to the state itself. |
Isle de Jean Charles residents view future homes for the first timeSource: Houma Today Date: 04/07/2021 Isle de Jean Charles residents got to see their future homes for the first time Wednesday. |
Welcome To 'The New Isle': Isle De Jean Charles Residents Get A First Look At Their New HomeSource: WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio Date: 04/26/2021 On a recent Wednesday, state employees with the Office of Community Development welcomed Louisianans as they pulled into what will soon be their new driveway. They handed out information folders and showed residents to the empty plots of land where their new homes will one day stand. |
Indigenous tribe in Louisiana relocates as rising seas engulf their homesSource: Reuters Date: 04/28/2021 Rocks are pictured that have been added recently to the eroding Island Road, which is the only way onto Isle de Jean Charles. |
This Louisiana neighborhood is retreating in the face of climate changeSource: Grist Date: 06/03/2021 In early May, President Joe Biden stood in front of the 70-year old Calcasieu River Bridge in Lake Charles, Louisiana. With the aging bridge in the background, he spoke about the hurricanes that have battered the town over the last year, emphasizing the need for infrastructure to adapt to the increasing severity of storms influenced by climate... |
New efforts to fight sea level rise as vanishing island serves as a cautionary taleSource: Fox11 News Date: 06/24/2021 All across the US, land is slowly disappearing due to rising sea levels caused by climate change. It’s an issue the Biden Administration is prioritizing, recently investing $1 billion to enhance efforts to protect vulnerable areas at risk of increased flooding. |
As seas rise, coastal communities face hard choices over 'managed retreat'Source: The Business Times Date: 06/25/2021 Key decisions on whether to go, what to protect, access to affordable housing and community culture need to be decided, but few are ready to talk seriously about the threats |
What is Needed for Fair and Equitable Managed Retreat?Source: State of the Planet Date: 07/01/2021 The Inupiat of Alaska recently created an entirely new word, usteq, to describe a catastrophic combination of permafrost thaw, flooding, and erosion that can lead to total land collapse. |
Louisiana ‘climate refugees’ lose faith in relocation projectSource: The Washington Times Date: 07/08/2021 State's nearly $50 million plan has yet to relocate any Isle de Jean Charles residents |
How ‘managed retreat’ can help communities facing sea-level riseSource: Cyprus Mail Date: 07/10/2021 In 2016, the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, a small strip of land off the coast of Louisiana, received a $48-million grant to relocate their entire community. Faced with sea-level rise and rapid erosion, many made the decision to seek higher ground, even though the process was a heart-wrenching one. |
The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe is losing homes to erosion on the Gulf CoastSource: Sun Herald Date: 07/12/2021 Chris Brunet points to the stumps of dead trees throughout his yard. “This whole place looked completely different when I was growing up,” he says. “There’s not much left now.” |
Native American tribes express concern about development on Isle de Jean CharlesSource: Houma Today Date: 07/16/2021 Native American leaders are questioning why Terrebonne Parish officials are considering new sites for fishing camps on Isle de Jean Charles when residents are being encouraged to leave the island as it erodes into the Gulf of Mexico. |
Our debt to places that are sinkingSource: The Boston Globe Date: 07/18/2021 US policy doesn’t properly recognize slow-moving disasters like climate change — while marginalized communities face the rising waters. |
To Flee, or to Stay Until the End and Be Swallowed by the SeaSource: Inside Climate News Date: 07/18/2021 On the Isle de Jean Charles in the bayous of Louisiana, the nation’s first federally funded climate migrants have a decision to make as their ancestral island disappears. |
Tribal leaders raise ‘serious concerns’ about plans to turn their shrinking Louisiana island home into a ‘sportsman’s paradise’Source: Nation of Change Date: 07/26/2021 After a long state and federal push to relocate the Indigenous people of Isle de Jean Charles from their threatened homeland, new recreational development around the island risks further colonial displacement. |
Building stronger: Island resettlement's homes designed to help weather stormsSource: Houma Today Date: 07/30/2021 Residents relocating from an eroding island off Terrebonne Parish will move into homes built and designed to help weather hurricanes. |
After 10 years, Isle de Jean Charles residents will soon have a new place to call homeSource: WWNO Date: 02/17/2022 The Isle de Jean resettlement program, a construction project spurred by extreme land loss that has been in the works for six years, is expected to finally wrap up this spring and move in its residents. |