Ecological Economics and Creole Cooking...

I came across a wonderful group called "Earth Economics" today that is doing amazing work in a number of areas relating to the areas of understanding ecosystems and how the proper interaction with them can create long term economic benefit and/or avoid serious economic loss.

Since it was just a year ago this week that we saw the destruction of New Orleans, I thought I'd report on the topic of how the application of ecological economics could have benefited the home of Dixieland Jazz and Creole Cooking. (incidentally, New Orleans is the birthplace of my paternal Grandparents - my Grandpa was born in the French Quarter in the famous building with rod iron balconies...)

Case in point is the management (or lack thereof) of the vast watershed and wetland system in the Mississippi delta. Had it been managed better, the enormous costs of building levees, etc. would have been reduced and also the damage to the city could have been reduced dramatically. This is real money we're talking about (of course if FEMA would actually spend it, but that is another matter!)

Here's what they Earth Economics wrote on their website about the matter and the work that they are doing in New Orleans:

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it is clear that flooding, storm damage and loss of life in Mississippi and Louisiana could have been less severe. Decades of damage to wetlands in the region had damaged the natural storm buffering capacity of barrier islands and local ecosystems.

Earth Economics is working with a team of scientists from Louisiana and around the nation to research Hurricane Katrina using tools from ecological economics.

• New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will be more vulnerable to hurricanes with warmer Gulf of Mexico waters, sea level rise and subsidence. This threatens the ecosystems, communities, economy and lives of people in coastal Louisiana.
  
  
• If the fresh water and sediment of the Mississippi River were diverted back into the wetlands they would clearly expand and provide storm buffering.
  
  
• Earth Economics is examining the dollar value of storm protection, carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services provided by the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta.
  
  
• Protection and restoration of wetlands with smaller levees is more economically efficient in providing hurricane protection than levee construction alone."

Read more on their website http://www.eartheconomics.org/projects/HurricaneKatrina/index.html

In the New Orleans theme, I'll also report on the work that they are doing to analyze and maintain what will hopefully become one of the first fully sustainable shrimp fisheries.

Shrimp harvesting is considered to be more environmentally detrimental....and important part of creole... keeping with the theme:

Here's what they're doing in the area of shrimp

"Our current efforts focus on the spot prawn fishery. Shrimp, harvested in the wild or produced via aquaculture, are one of the most unsustainable seafoods, involving vast amounts of bycatch, habitat destruction, mangrove deforestation, and dislocation of coastal communities.

Earth Economics has brought together a coalition of spot prawn fishers, NGOs, and government agencies from California to Alaska in creating and implementing a strategy for sustainable spot prawn production. This coalition aims to certify the spot prawn as the first sustainably-harvested shrimp fishery in the world."

Earth Economics is doing other work in the areas of forestry, toxics, reforming finance and trade, and education of business, government and policymakers.

Their website also has a great list of "key concepts" which are very much worth a read, if you're interested.

See below:

http://www.eartheconomics.org/ecolecon/ee_centralconcepts.html

From time to time, I'll elaborate on some of these ideas.