Did Someone Forget to Include “America’s Wetland” on a List of Endangered Vacation Spots?

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? (Sources: Flickr (Becky Spiker; rocksmailnow); Louisiana State University)

The Yahoo! blog Daily Green News reported last Thursday on five popular tourism spots in the United States facing uncertain futures due to drought, strip mining, rising sea levels, and other environmental challenges. In a new twist on the “bucket list”, author Dan Shapley encouraged readers to visit destinations like Glacier National Park and the salmon runs of the Snake River before economic activity and ecological changes alter them forever.

But while he included popular places like Las Vegas and the Everglades in his list of vulnerable, must-see places, there was one glaring omission that we think deserved notice – the wetlands of Louisiana. The cypress forests, marshes and bayous of coastal Louisiana, commonly referred to as “America’s Wetland”, are not only an important natural treasure. Collectively, these endangered habitats also serve as an important economic driver for the tourism sector in Louisiana.

According to an October 2009 report by the U.S. Travel Association, travel expenditures by domestic tourists in Louisiana in 2008 exceeded $9.3 billion, nearly equivalent to tourism spending in the state before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The tourism sector generated nearly 102,000 jobs in Louisiana in 2008, equal to 5.2% of total non-agricultural employment in the state. Tourists from within the state and the rest of the country generated more than $1.1 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenue in 2008, and more than thirteen parishes reported 1,000 or more jobs directly tied to domestic travel and tourism.

Tourism Spending and Jobs in Louisiana in 2008. The box shows expenditure and employment for the twenty parishes in Louisiana's coastal zone (Source: U.S. Travel Association)

Parishes in Louisiana's wetlands accounted for the lion's share of tourism dollars, tax revenues, and jobs. Spending by American travelers in the state’s twenty coastal parishes accounted for more than 63% of Louisiana tourism expenditures in 2008. In addition, more than 68% of state tourism jobs were in parishes like Lafourche and Terrebonne that are at risk from wetland loss, coastal erosion, and rising sea levels. $4.5 billion of tourism spending in Louisiana occurred in Orleans ($3.5 billion) and Jefferson ($1.0 billion) Parishes, which recorded the largest domestic travel impacts of all the parishes in Louisiana. 56,600 state tourism jobs (out of 101,700 in all of Louisiana) were reported in these two parishes alone.

One-fourth of all tourism sector workers are involved in food service. Many of them are employees at restaurants serving fresh crawfish, oysters, and shrimp caught by local fishermen in the estuaries and bayous of coastal Louisiana. Because of the cyclical interaction between local landforms and the surrounding waters where the fish breed and grow, the fate of the state's seafood sector is directly tied to the health and restoration of Louisiana's wetlands.

Taken together with hunting and scenic bird watching activity in the wetlands of coastal Louisiana, it’s clear that the state’s tourism sector would be irreparably damaged if the coast continues to disappear at its current pace. With each passing hour, two football field-sized patches of this national treasure erode into the Gulf of Mexico, putting a vibrant ecosystem and an important economic sector in danger.

Concerted restoration efforts by state and local governments could reverse wetland loss and preserve the scenic swamps of southern Louisiana. With billions in tax revenues and thousands of jobs on the line in tourism alone, we think it’s a fight worth winning.