[StBernard] Governor receives $15 million Ducks Unlimited pledge for coastal marsh restoration

[Westley Annis]

Governor Blanco receives $15 million Ducks Unlimited pledge for coastal
marsh restoration 

BATON ROUGE, LA--Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco today accepted a $15
million pledge from Ducks Unlimited (DU) for coastal wetlands restoration
projects in Louisiana. 

"This contribution provides a generous boost to our efforts to revitalize
America's Wetland, which was dealt devastating blows by Katrina and Rita,"
said Governor Blanco. "Coastal restoration is a key component in our storm
protection strategy and we welcome Ducks Unlimited as a partner."

To date, DU has protected 13,000 acres of Louisiana coastal marsh and
restored or enhanced 38,000 acres. The conservation organization's $15
million pledge is the center point of DU's new Louisiana Coastal Restoration
Initiative. DU will continue to work with the Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries, the Department of Natural Resources, federal conservation
agencies and conservation organizations to protect or restore 52,000 acres
along the Louisiana coast by 2008. 

"Wetlands restoration is what Ducks Unlimited does best," said Jason
Thomasee, Louisiana state chairman for DU. "To get people's lives back to
normal as quickly as possible requires that services and homes be restored
and rebuilt, and that the critical coastal wetlands that help protect those
homes and people be restored, too."

The estimated price tag to save Louisiana's coastal marsh is $14 billion.
But scientists indicate that as a general rule, one mile of coastal marsh
can reduce a storm surge by one foot. The 29-foot storm surge recorded
during Hurricane Katrina was the highest ever recorded during a Gulf Coast
hurricane.

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world's largest
and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization. The
United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands
nature's most productive ecosystem and continues to lose more than 100,000
wetland acres each year.