Local Voices: Louisiana Bayou Tribes Discuss Living with Climate Challenges

Randy Peppler and Heather Lazrus will moderate a discussion involving Louisiana community members and researchers, which will include brief remarks from each of these panelists. Louisiana Bayou tribal communities face critical challenges from shifting climate, extreme weather, hydrologic processes, and man-made environmental disaster. As a result, sea levels rise, storms surge, and coastlines shift. Community members are observing and experiencing changes that affect livelihoods, cultural practices, locally-produced environmental knowledges, and plans for their communities' futures. This panel brings participatory researchers and thought leaders from the Isle de Jean Charles Tribe and Pointe au Chien Tribe of the lower Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, Louisiana into conversation about weather and climate impacts and responses. Panelists will draw from their experience to address questions about integrating scientific and local knowledge, community resilience, and adaptation in the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina and other events forever changed the bayou and coastlines.