Faces of Green Light: Rosina combines Green Innovation with Traditional Atakapa Knowledge
The boat ride to Rosina’s home in the Grand Bayou community is short, but beautiful. A wide open blue sky, brushed with thin wisps of clouds and bright spring sunlight shines down on the wide channel of bayou. Abandoned fishing boats rest in the same reeds where Katrina left them nearly five years earlier. Their paint is peeling and one flat-bottomed craft has given in to a garden of grasses growing up from within the hull.
Brackish waterways crisscross the marsh here on the lowest spit of land in Louisiana, just an hour from the tip of the state- a place referred to as “the end of the world.” Though there are few structures here now, this area has been inhabited by the native Atakapa-Ishak people for thousands of years. The Atakapa are trappers and fisher people who have a long history of surviving in the ever-changing wetland ecosystem. Rosina is one of the few Atakapa who has reclaimed her home since the storm.
A short distance down the channel from the boat launch, we pull into Rosina’s docking area. Her newly constructed home stands up tall before us on 14 ft stilts. The ground around the house is muddy enough to show fresh raccoon prints. We climb up a tall set of stairs to enter Rosina’s warm, sunny living room. During Katrina, the Atakapa people of Grand Bayou evacuated to their boats, leaving many of their possessions behind. Though everyone survived the storm, the majority of the homes were destroyed. Now it is just Rosina, her brother, and a few others who have finally returned home. They are picking up the pieces of their lives. Shrimping season has begun. Though it is not as traditional for women to participate, Rosina says that she often assists in the catch when there are fewer men living in the village.
As we install bulbs in each room, Rosina describes the difficulty her community has had in rebuilding. Because they live on the coastal marsh, Rosina and her relatives have struggled to access the federal aid allotted for delta rebuilding projects. According to Rosina, the sweeping government mandates take no account of the traditional knowledge and building practices of the Atakapa people, who have survived coastal storms for centuries. Atakapa traditions teach sustainable lifestyles in marsh environments, and they depend on healthy wetlands to help protect their land. Wetlands provide a buffer from storm surges for the Grand Bayou community as well as Louisiana residents who live up the channel. Numerous scientific studies have shown that wetlands are a key element in mitigating the risk of severe storm flooding. (The infamous MRGO -Mississippi River Gulf Outlet- is a powerful example of wetland degradation. For more information on this, check out the Gulf Restoration Network’s website on natural defenses.)
Though it is slow, the Atakapa community in Grand Bayou is determined to come back, and Rosina is eager to rebuild in a way that mixes traditional knowledge with green innovation. As a grassroots activist, Rosina has worked with many organizations who support this objective. “We’ve been talking about green building and alternative energy for years,” she said in a 2007 interview with Grist. “We would love Grand Bayou to be a model of sustainability for marsh communities everywhere.” Green Light is excited to be involved in this goal by providing energy efficient light bulbs.
The Grand Bayou community represents a unique piece of Louisiana culture. A mix of native and Cajun roots, the community is unlike any other in the United States. As Rosina says, “One of the biggest losses if people are forced to move out of the Bayou is the loss of ecological and historical knowledge of the region. We have know-how that can form the foundation of rebuilding in ways that makes sense. We have the history and the knowledge. It will be an irreparable loss if we are driven out of the region.”
