Plant Science Bulletin 59(3) 2013 Botany in Action Project Helps Bayou Rebirth Restore Wetlands Plants Give a botanist a day off and a chance to make a difference, and what happens? Well, if the example is that of 75 botanists at the Annual Conference of the Botanical Society of America, they put their hands and backs into restoration of the Louisiana wetlands.
At an urban office complex where the native species were used to landscape, the Botany in Action Team went to work weeding and planting. toted blocks. All the work was accomplished while they fired off questions about the plants they were working with and the native habitat and environmental impact of the hurricanes and flooding of the low-lying neighborhood. Camaraderie and laughter punctuated the sometimes serious discussions of environment and restoration of New Orleans wetlands. A few blamed the heat for the inevitable water fight, caused when a liner tarp had to be rinsed and the hose went rogue.
Seanna Walsh of the University of Hawaii mixes soil during the Botany in Action project.
Part of the assignment was separating and replanting some of the wetlands species, something the botanists took on with smiles.
Every year during the conference, BSA organizes a Botany in Action field trip, giving the members a chance to give back to the host community. In 2013, that field trip was organized around Bayou Rebirth, a New Orleans non-profit devoted to hands-on wetlands restoration and stewardship.
Next stop was an office complex, where the developer had decided a native landscaping would afford a more environmentally friendly option. BSA’s volunteers formed teams and spread out to
“We offer volunteers and students an opportunity to engage in environmental restoration in a real way and learn about the issues facing an incredibly diverse, ecologically valuable, and significantly degraded ecosystem in their backyard,” says Colleen Morgan, founder and director of the program, which is affiliated with Tulane University. But not every volunteer group is quite like the botanists that poured off the bus in late July, ready with plant savvy and ready to learn about the Louisiana plants they were going to tackle. The group started in the backyard of an urban neighborhood, where Bayou Rebirth had a variety of gardens with native plants. They planted new seeds, moved garden beds, weeded, dug, and
Toting blocks from an old seedbed to create a new one called for some muscle. 88