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Discovering Cat Island: Photographs and History
Par John Cuevas. 2018
Cat Island, just off the Mississippi Gulf Coast shoreline, has been home to some of the most dramatic events and…
remarkable stories in the nation's history. While some of these stories are fact, others are colorful fables passed down through the ages with such conviction they have become true in the hearts and minds of many. Between fact and fiction is the undeniable reality: Cat Island is one of the most historically significant landmarks on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.Featuring over 160 black-and-white photographs by Jason Taylor and a foreword by Mississippi's Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, John Cuevas's Discovering Cat Island guides readers through Cat Island with stories and histories of twenty-nine sites--both real and imagined--of the legendary barrier island. Originally owned by the Cuevas family as part of a Spanish land grant to Juan de Cuevas in 1781, Cat Island boasts a colorful history that includes events related to the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte and the outlaw James Copeland, both of whom were thought to have buried their stolen treasure somewhere on the island; the Battle of New Orleans; and the War of 1812. The island served as one of the staging areas for the Seminole forced to abandon their homes and take part in the Trail of Tears. In the twentieth century, the island was a convenient transfer point for gangsters and local bootleggers shipping booze during Prohibition before becoming a US military training camp site during World War II. In 1988, Cat Island became the location of the first oil drilling ever in the Mississippi Sound and in 2010 was one of the islands devastated by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.Hydrocarbon Hucksters: Lessons from Louisiana on Oil, Politics, and Environmental Justice
Par Ernest Zebrowski, Mariah Zebrowski Leach. 2014
Hydrocarbon Hucksters is the saga of the oil industry's takeover of Louisiana—its leaders, its laws, its environment, and, by rechanneling…
the flow of public information, its voters. It is a chronicle of mindboggling scientific and technical triumphs sharing the same public stew with myths about the “goodness” of oil and bald-faced public lies by politicians and the captains of industry. It is a story of money and power, greed and corruption, jingoism and exploitation, pollution and disease, and the bewilderment and resignation of too many of the powerless. Most importantly, Hydrocarbon Hucksters is a case study of what happens when a state uncritically hands the oil and petrochemical industries everything they desire. Today, Louisiana ranks at or near the bottom of the fifty states on virtually every measure related to the quality of life—income, health, education, environment, public services, public safety, physical infrastructure, and vulnerability to disasters (both natural and man-made). Nor, contrary to the claims of the hydrocarbon sector, has there been much in the way of job creation to offset all of this social grief. The authors (one a scientist, the other an environmental lawyer) have woven together the science, legal history, economic issues, and national and global contexts of what has happened. Their objective is to raise enough national awareness to prevent other parts of the United States from repeating Louisiana's historical follies. The authors are uncle and niece, a generation apart, who have melded their conclusions from two separate tracks.Ain't There No More: Louisiana's Disappearing Coastal Plain (America's Third Coast Series)
Par Carl A. Brasseaux, Donald W. Davis. 2017
Winner of the 2018 Louisiana Literary Award given by the Louisiana Library AssociationFor centuries, outlanders have openly denigrated Louisiana's coastal…
wetlands residents and their stubborn refusal to abandon the region's fragile prairies tremblants despite repeated natural and, more recently, man-made disasters. Yet, the cumulative environmental knowledge these wetlands survivors have gained through painful experiences over the course of two centuries holds invaluable keys to the successful adaptation of modern coastal communities throughout the globe. As Hurricane Sandy recently demonstrated, coastal peoples everywhere face rising sea levels, disastrous coastal erosion, and, inevitably, difficult lifestyle choices.Along the Bayou State's coast the most insidious challenges are man-made. Since channelization of the Mississippi River in the wake of the 1927 flood, which diverted sediments and nutrients from the wetlands, coastal Louisiana has lost to erosion, subsidence, and rising sea levels a land mass roughly twice the size of Connecticut. State and national policymakers were unable to reverse this environmental catastrophe until Hurricane Katrina focused a harsh spotlight on the human consequences of eight decades of neglect. Yet, even today, the welfare of Louisiana's coastal plain residents remains, at best, an afterthought in state and national policy discussions.For coastal families, the Gulf water lapping at the doorstep makes this morass by no means a scholarly debate over abstract problems. Ain't There No More renders an easily read history filled with new insights and possibilities. Rare, previously unpublished images documenting a disappearing way of life accompany the narrative. The authors bring nearly a century of combined experience to distilling research and telling this story in a way invaluable to Louisianans, to policymakers, and to all those concerned with rising sea levels and seeking a long-term solution.Beyond Control: The Mississippi River’s New Channel to the Gulf of Mexico (America's Third Coast Series)
Par James F. Barnett Jr.. 2017
Beyond Control reveals the Mississippi as a waterway of change, unnaturally confined by ever-larger levees and control structures. During the…
great flood of 1973, the current scoured a hole beneath the main structure near Baton Rouge and enlarged a pre-existing football-field-size crater. That night the Mississippi River nearly changed its course for a shorter and steeper path to the sea. Such a map-changing reconfiguration of the country’s largest river would bear national significance as well as disastrous consequences for New Orleans and towns like Morgan City, at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. Since 1973, the US Army Corps of Engineers Control Complex at Old River has kept the Mississippi from jumping out of its historic channel and plunging through the Atchafalaya Basin to the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond Control traces the history of this phenomenon, beginning with a major channel shift around 3,000 years ago. By the time European colonists began to explore the Lower Mississippi Valley, a unique confluence of waterways had formed where the Red River joined the Mississippi, and the Atchafalaya River flowed out into the Atchafalaya Basin. A series of human alterations to this potentially volatile web of rivers, starting with a bend cutoff in 1831 by Captain Henry Miller Shreve, set the forces in motion for the Mississippi’s move into the Atchafalaya Basin. Told against the backdrop of the Lower Mississippi River’s impending diversion, the book’s chapters chronicle historic floods, rising flood crests, a changing strategy for flood protection, and competing interests in the management of the Old River outlet. Beyond Control is both a history and a close look at an inexorable, living process happening now in the twenty-first century.Wilder Ways
Par Donald C. Jackson. 2012
In Wilder Ways, Donald C. Jackson takes readers on a journey into the deep and very personal connections that can…
develop between people and wild places while hunting, fishing, and rambling across landscapes. Fishing by lantern light late at night for bullhead catfish on a small stream, hunting wood ducks and squirrels on his farm in north Mississippi, bow hunting deer as twilight creeps across a small clearing, handlining crabs in the Pascagoula River estuary, hunting caribou in Alaska and elk in Colorado, searching for blind fish in Ozark caves, and fighting a storm on an Indonesian river: Jackson leads us into reflections of our own journeys and helps us to understand that we can be part of a wilder way, often very near to our homes. We walk with him through the tall grass, wet with early morning dew, light tackle in hand, down to a “ditch” under a Mississippi highway bridge and then discover that the “ditch” is really a very fine stream full of fish. We recapture the essence of hunting by stalking fox squirrels in a small patch of hardwoods. We stand beside him, listening to the whistle of wings as ducks pass overhead in the pre-dawn light and fog that surround a tiny, brushy pond hidden in the woods. We smell the salt air and feel the power of a redfish as it strips line from the fishing reel while the sunset turns marsh to gold. We walk alone under the starlight along an Alaskan river after an afternoon of grayling fishing. We fall in love again with tents, tractors, and old brown dogs. Through the shared journeys in Wilder Ways, we link with the rhythms of the earth, understanding that the wilds are not something separate from us. We are all somewhat wilder than perhaps we ever imagine.Fragile Grounds: Louisiana's Endangered Cemeteries (America's Third Coast Series)
Par Jessica H. Schexnayder, Mary H. Manhein. 2017
Recipient of a 2018 Preserve Louisiana Award and a 2018 Coastal Stewardship AwardFragile Grounds compiles stories and photographs of endangered…
cemeteries throughout Louisiana's coastal zone and beyond. These burial places link the fragile land to the frailty of the state's threatened community structures. The book highlights the state's vibrant diversity by showing its unique burial customs and traditions, while it also identifies the urgent need for ongoing documentation of cultural elements at risk.Cemeteries associated with the culturally rich communities of Louisiana reflect the history and global settlement patterns of the state. Yet many are endangered due to recurring natural and man-made events. Nearly 80 percent of the nation's coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana. Coastal erosion, sinking land, flooding, storm surge, and sea-level rise have led to an inland migration that threatens to unravel the fabric of Louisiana and, by association, hastens the demise of its burial places.As people are forced inland, migrants abandon, neglect, or often overlook cemeteries as part of the cultural landscape. In terms of erosion, when the land goes, the cemetery goes with it. Cemeteries fall prey to inland and coastal flooding. As cities grow outward, urban sprawl takes over the landscape. Cemeteries lose out to forces such as expansion, eminent domain, and urban neglect. Not only do cemeteries give comfort for the living, but they also serve as a vital link to the past. Once lost, that past cannot be recovered.Fish and Wildlife Management: A Handbook for Mississippi Landowners
Par Adam T. Rohnke and James L. Cummins. 2014
Featuring over five hundred illustrations and forty tables, this book is a collection of in-depth discussions by a tremendous range…
of experts on topics related to wildlife and fisheries management in Mississippi. Beginning with foundational chapters on natural resource history and conservation planning, the authors discuss the delicate balance between profit and land stewardship. A series of chapters about the various habitat types and the associated fish and wildlife populations that dominate them follow. Several chapters expand on the natural history and specific management techniques of popular species of wildlife, including white-tailed deer, eastern wild turkey, and other species. Experts discuss such special management topics as supplemental, wildlife-food planting, farm pond management, backyard habitat, nuisance animal control, and invasive plant species control. Leading professionals who work every day in Mississippi with landowners on wildlife and fisheries management created this indispensable book. The up-to-date and applicable management techniques discussed here can be employed by private landowners throughout the state. For those who do not own rural lands but have an interest in wildlife and natural resources, this book also has much to offer. Residents of urban communities interested in creating a wildlife-friendly yard will delight in the backyard habitat chapter specifically written for them. Whether responsible for one-fourth of an acre or two thousand, landowners will find this handbook to be an incalculable aid on their journey to good stewardship of their Mississippi lands.Deeper Currents: The Sacraments of Hunting and Fishing
Par Donald C. Jackson. 2016
In Deeper Currents, Donald C. Jackson guides us on a journey into the cathedrals of wild and lonely places, those…
sacred spaces where hunters and fishers connect with the rhythms of the earth and the spirit that resonates within us. Jackson explores hunting and fishing as frameworks—sacraments—for discovering, engaging, and finding meaning. He invites readers to consider connections with wilder realms of being. Hunting squirrels on an autumn morning, probing the woods, rifle in hand, Jackson reveals an attention to nature too often neglected. Following a bird dog into the damp and mysterious places where woodcock settle on their southbound migrations; chasing hounds on the trail of raccoons on a frosty winter night; stalking deer in a quiet corner of a small farm; fishing for carp in a creek, bass and bluegill in ponds, catfish in a murky river, and reef fish in the Gulf, Jackson reminds that we are stewards of not only resources but also a past that defines us as hunters and fishers. We must pass this legacy along to the generations that follow. In Deeper Currents, tractors and old barns find a place in the reader's heart. Boats and canoes navigate realms of danger and dreams. Jackson shares outdoor pilgrimages with good friends in cabins, tents, camps, and old trailers tucked beyond the reach of a rushing world. He rejoices in the whisper of stiff wings as ducks come to decoys, the call of geese and cranes over tidal flats, the hush before a storm, the muffled snap of a twig at twilight, a drop of dew falling on the surface of a pond, and the clicking of caribou hooves on an Alaskan gravel bar. Jackson finds these natural moments fill us with energy. They remind us that we are taking part in a sacred heritage and that creation is unfolding all around us.Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement
Par Peggy Frankland. 2013
Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement provides a window into the passion and significance of thirty-eight committed individuals who…
led a grassroots movement in a socially conservative state. The book is comprised of oral history narratives in which women activists share their motivation, struggles, accomplishments, and hard-won wisdom. Additionally interviews with eight men, all leaders who worked with or against the women, provide more insight into this rich--and also gendered--history.The book sheds light on Louisiana and America's social and political history, as well as the national environmental movement in which women often emerged to speak for human rights, decent health care, and environmental protection. By illuminating a crucial period in Louisiana history, the women tell how "environmentalism" emerged within a state already struggling with the dual challenges of adjusting to the civil rights movement and the growing oil boom.Peggy Frankland, an environmental activist herself since 1982, worked with a team of interviewers, especially those trained at Louisiana State University's T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. Together they interviewed forty women pioneers of the state environmental movement. Frankland's work also was aided by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. In this compilation, she allows the women's voices to provide a clear picture of how their smallest actions impacted their communities, their families, and their way of life. Some experiences were frightening, some were demeaning, and many women were deeply affected by the individual persecution, ridicule, and scorn their activities brought. But their shared victories reveal the positive influence their activism had on the lives of loved ones and fellow citizens.A Guide to Moist-Soil Wetland Plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
Par Michael L. Schummer, Heath M. Hagy, K. Sarah Fleming, Joshua C. Cheshier, James T. Callicutt. 2012
Moist-soil wetlands are seasonally flooded areas that produce early-succession plant communities of grasses, sedges, and other herbaceous plants. Moist-soil wetland…
plants provide food and cover for a diversity of wildlife species, including waterfowl and other waterbirds. Thus, conservation and management of moist-soil plants has become a major component of wildlife conservation efforts in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and elsewhere in North America. The authors combined their extensive experience working in managed and unmanaged wetlands from southern Missouri to southern Louisiana to produce this beautifully illustrated identification guide. A detailed, yet user friendly field guide to identify moist-soil plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley has not been available until now. Management to encourage the growth of moist-soil plants is a common conservation strategy used by state, federal, and private landowners to increase food and cover for wildlife. Thus, landowners must be able to identify moist-soil plants to meet their wildlife conservation goals. Landowners, scientists, wildlife biologists, and students alike will welcome this useful resource which includes 600 detailed color photographs of plants, images of seeds and tubers, and other helpful information to aid in identification. The book includes subsections of major plant groups occurring in moist-soil wetlands including aquatics, grasses, broadleaves, sedges and rushes, trees and shrubs, vines, and agricultural crops.Fannye Cook: Mississippi's Pioneering Conservationist
Par Dorothy Shawhan. 2017
Mississippi Chapter of The Wildlife Society Outstanding BookConservationist Fannye Cook (1889-1964) was the most widely known scientist in Mississippi and…
was nationally known as the go-to person for biological information or wildlife specimens from the state. This biography celebrates the environmentalist instrumental in the creation of the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission (now called the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks) and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.To accomplish this feat, Cook led an extensive grassroots effort to implement game laws and protect the state's environment. In 1926 she began traveling the state at her own expense, speaking at county fairs, schools, and clubs, and to county boards of supervisors on the status of wildlife populations and the need for management. Eventually she collected a diverse group of supporters from across the state. Due to these efforts, the legislature created the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission in 1932. Thanks to the formation of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, Cook received a WPA grant to conduct a comprehensive plant and animal survey of Mississippi. Under this program, eighteen museums were established within the state, and another one in Jackson, which served as the hub for public education and scientific research.Fannye Cook served as director of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science until her retirement in 1958. During her tenure, she published many bulletins, pamphlets, scientific papers, and the extensive book Freshwater Fishes of Mississippi.Making India Disaster Resilient: Challenges and Future Perspectives
Par Vishwa Raj Sharma, Chandrakanta. 2024
Various natural and man-made hazards are nowadays increasingly considered as disasters, particularly by individual and communities are lacking in awareness…
and where a system as a whole has no adequate management mechanism. Consequently, the world is facing serious negative outcome in form of loss of life, injury, disability, loss of property, infrastructure, and economic disruption followed by psycho-social disorders. Other than this, disasters adversely affect wildlife and environment in long terms. Developing countries are worst sufferers as these regions are poorly prepared for potential hazards at one hand and are exposed to disasters due to the complexity of (socio-cultural, economic and physical) vulnerability. Government, World communities, NGOs are recognizing the problems and are trying to build resilient communities to reduce disaster impact at various levels.Year 1990-99 was observed as the decade for natural disaster reduction by United Nations (UN) and United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) was established to support and coordinate this movement. Year 2015 has been very important in the history as three global agreements have been signed by global communities (Sustainable development goals, Paris agreement and Sendai framework for DRR). Where, SDGs are extension of MDGs to make the planet more sustainable. It proposed 17 goals and 15 years’ time frame adopted in the year 2015. SDGs target various social, cultural, economic, challenges followed by wildlife, environmental protection through knowledge share and technological innovation among all member countries. In December 2015, UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future known as Paris agreement. Sendai Framework 2015 is voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognizes that the state has the primary role to reduce disasterrisk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders. This framework focuses on the pre-disaster management rather than post disaster relief and recovery. This book is an insight into the various issues related to the emerging disasters (both natural and man-made), vulnerable communities, and government initiatives taken with a geographical focus on India. This volume contains selected chapters written by faculty and research scholars. This book is an empirical work on disasters vulnerabilities and management which will benefit researchers, academicians, professional, practitioners and policy makers.Sustainable Marketing and the Circular Economy in Poland: Key Concepts and Strategies (Routledge Focus on Environment and Sustainability)
Par Anita Proszowska, Ewa Prymon-Ryś, Anna Dubel, Anna Kondak, Aleksandra Wilk. 2024
Sustainable Marketing and the Circular Economy in Poland outlines the specific challenges around formulating an organisation's marketing strategy in line…
with the circular economy (CE) framework.This book helps to solve the problem of ineffective pro-environmental programmes and marketing tools, which are currently used by enterprises to make their activities more sustainable. The authors identify key concepts and strategies of sustainable marketing to highlight the trends and development directions of marketing activities of modern enterprises. Focussing on Poland as a central case study, the book is illustrated with examples of organisations that are implementing sustainable marketing activities that are compatible with the CE model. It also presents the results of studies which examined the pro-environmental marketing efforts of small- and medium-sized enterprises, non-governmental organisations and other actors in Poland. To conclude, the authors put forward recommendations for CE network stakeholders regarding sustainable marketing management, focussing specifically on how to avoid accusations of greenwashing and other unethical organisational behaviour.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of green marketing, sustainable business and the CE, as well as entrepreneurs and business professionals looking to formulate sustainable marketing strategies.Covid-19 and Global Inequalities: Vulnerable Humans (Routledge Studies in Environment and Health)
Par Victor Jeleniewski Seidler. 2024
This timely and powerful autoethnography traces the spread of and responses to Covid-19: from the uncertainty surrounding its outbreak, to…
its devastating and continued aftermath. Following the virus in real time, it explores the fears, risks and responses to the global pandemic, and how it has shaped our everyday lives against the backdrop of social and political upheaval, and the looming climate crisis.Social theorist and moral philosopher, Victor Jeleniewski Seidler, discusses fundamental questions of inequality and injustice regarding race, class and gender brought to the fore by the visibility of varying risk levels, vulnerabilities and protections provided by legislative measures against the virus. This interdisciplinary analysis scrutinises values, ethics, responsibilities and uncertain futures formed by the global health crisis, and evaluates media and communications strategies, government responses and political communications at domestic and international levels. Seidler shares critical insights into the cultural history of pandemics, highlighting lessons to be learned from anticipating, preparing for and enduring moments of crisis. Perceiving how the pandemic and climate emergency are interwoven, the book concludes with an urgent call to rebuild sustainable economic, political and ecological imaginations.This wide-reaching volume will appeal to a broad academic readership in environmental studies, sociology, philosophy, health studies, cultural studies, gender studies, media and communication.Cultivating Continuity of the European Landscape: New Challenges, Innovative Perspectives (Environmental History #15)
Par Mauro Agnoletti, Saša Dobričič, Tessa Matteini, Juan Manuel Palerm. 2024
This edited volume reviews 20 years’ worth of research under the European Landscape Convention. The authors from the research network…
UNISCAPE offer readers insights into their combined efforts to carry out and support the goals of a sustainable European landscape. 20 years after defining these original goals, the editors make landscape ecology and management, a cornerstone for the debate on a 21st century Europe. The numerous contributions cover the three major areas of Landscape Policy and Governance, Landscape Design and Time and Observing Landscape. The pan-European approach highlights the strength of international collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking.This book offers the collected knowledge as a working tool for researchers, scholars and professionals in landscape ecology.Tide Lines: A Photographic Record of Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast
Par Ben Depp. 2023
In Tide Lines: A Photographic Record of Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast, Ben Depp’s photographs capture the beauty, complexity, and rapid destruction…
of south Louisiana. Once formed by sediment deposited by the Mississippi River, the Louisiana coast is now quickly eroding. Two thousand square miles of wetlands have returned to open water over the past eighty years. Depp’s photographs communicate weather and seasonal changes—like the shifting high-water line, color temperature, and softness of light. A careful observer will notice coastal flora and distinguish living cypress trees from those that have been killed by saltwater intrusion, or see the patterns made by wave energy on barrier island beaches and sediment carried through freshwater diversions from the Mississippi River. With a powered paraglider, Depp flies between ten and ten thousand feet above the ground. He spends hours in the air, camera in hand, waiting for the brief moments when the first rays of sunlight mix with cool predawn light and illuminate forms in the grass, or when evening light sculpts fragments of marsh and geometric patterns of human enterprise—canals, oil platforms, pipelines, and roads. Featuring an introduction by Monique Verdin and over fifty color images, Tide Lines is an intense bird's-eye survey that depicts south Louisiana from an unfamiliar perspective, prompting the viewer to reconsider the value of this vanishing, otherworldly landscape.Last Stand of the Louisiana Shrimpers
Par Emma Christopher Lirette. 2022
In recent years, shrimpers on the Louisiana coast have faced a historically dire shrimp season, with the price of shrimp…
barely high enough to justify trawling. Yet, many of them wouldn’t consider leaving shrimping behind, despite having transferrable skills that could land them jobs in the oil and gas industry. Since 2001, shrimpers have faced increasing challenges to their trade: an influx of shrimp from southeast Asia, several traumatic hurricane seasons, and the largest oil spill at sea in American history. In Last Stand of the Louisiana Shrimpers, author Emma Christopher Lirette traces how Louisiana Gulf Coast shrimpers negotiate land and blood, sea and freedom, and economic security and networks of control. This book explores what ties shrimpers to their boats and nets. Despite feeling trapped by finances and circumstances, they have created a world in which they have agency. Lirette provides a richly textured view of the shrimpers of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, calling upon ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interdisciplinary scholarship, and critical theory. With evocative, lyrical prose, she argues that in persisting to trawl in places that increasingly restrict their way of life, shrimpers build fragile, quietly defiant worlds, adapting to a constantly changing environment. In these flickering worlds, shrimpers reimagine what it means to work and what it means to make a living.The Green Mister Rogers: Environmentalism in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (Children's Literature Association Series)
Par Sara Lindey, Jason King. 2022
Fred Rogers was an international celebrity. He was a pioneer in children’s television, an advocate for families, and a multimedia…
artist and performer. He wrote the television scripts and music, performed puppetry, sang, hosted, and directed Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for more than thirty years. In his almost nine hundred episodes, Rogers pursued dramatic topics: divorce, death, war, sibling rivalry, disabilities, racism. Rogers’ direct, slow, gentle, and empathic approach is supported by his superior emotional strength, his intellectual and creative courage, and his joyful spiritual confidence. The Green Mister Rogers: Environmentalism in “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” centers on the show’s environmentalism, primarily expressed through his themed week “Caring for the Environment,” produced in 1990 in coordination with the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day. Unfolding against a trash catastrophe in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Rogers advances an environmentalism for children that secures children in their family homes while extending their perspective to faraway places, from the local recycling center to Florida’s coral reef. Rogers depicts animal wisdom and uses puppets to voice anxiety and hope and shows an interconnected world where each part of creation is valued, and love is circulated in networks of care. Ultimately, Rogers cultivates a practical wisdom that provides a way for children to confront the environmental crisis through action and hope and, in doing so, develop into adults who possess greater care for the environment and a capacious imagination for solving the ecological problems we face.They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans
Par Macon Fry. 2021
They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans is the previously untold story of perhaps the…
oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture. For the better part of two centuries, batture dwellers such as Macon Fry have raised shantyboats on stilts, built water-adapted homes, foraged, fished, and survived using the skills a river teaches. Until now the stories of this way of life have existed only in the memories of those who have lived here. Beginning in 2000, Fry set about recording the stories of all the old batture dwellers he could find: maritime workers, willow furniture makers, fishermen, artists, and river shrimpers. Along the way, Fry uncovered fascinating tales of fortune tellers, faith healers, and wild bird trappers who defiantly lived on the river. They Called Us River Rats also explores the troubled relationship between people inside the levees, the often-reviled batture folks, and the river itself. It traces the struggle between batture folks and city authorities, the commercial interests that claimed the river, and Louisiana’s most powerful politicians. These conflicts have ended in legal battles, displacement, incarceration, and even lynching. Today Fry is among the senior generation of “River Rats” living in a vestigial colony of twelve “camps” on New Orleans’s river batture, a fragment of a settlement that once stretched nearly six miles and numbered hundreds of homes. It is the last riparian settlement on the Lower Mississippi and a contrarian, independent life outside urban zoning, planning, and flood protection. This book is for everyone who ever felt the pull of the Mississippi River or saw its towering levees and wondered who could live on the other side.Peep Light: Stories of a Mississippi River Boat Captain
Par Lee Hendrix. 2024
Most people only consider the Mississippi River when they cross it or when it inconveniently abandons its banks. But every…
year, millions of tons of cargo are transported by towboats on the river. In Peep Light: Stories of a Mississippi River Boat Captain, Captain Lee Hendrix provides unique insight on people who work and live on and near the Mississippi River. Hendrix, formerly a pilot for the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., has worked on the Mississippi for fifty years, first as a towboat deckhand in 1972 and eventually as a pilot of towboats and passenger vessels. In 2014, Hendrix became captain of the towboat Mississippi with the US Army Corps of Engineers, then he later retired to return to passenger vessels. For Hendrix and others like him, he is at home on the river, living and dining with the same people they work with, working with familiar faces for years at a time and yet meeting new people every day.Demonstrating a fascination not only with the river but also with the passions and dreams of those who live and work on it, these stories range from personal reflections on aging, experiencing one’s first night on the river and the complex emotions that come with it, working on the deck, promotion to pilot, the characters working aboard these boats, and the history of the river itself. Peep Light unites humans with the river through engaging storytelling and sheds light on Hendrix’s rare experience along one of the most powerful and important waterways in the world.