An award-winning call to action was made by the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies and the Southeastern Channel, underlining the immediacy of disappearing Louisiana wetlands and how their disappearance will have consequences that reach well beyond the state’s borders.
This call to action, a documentary film titled “American Crisis, American Shame: The National Consequence of Coastal Erosion,” received a Remi Special Jury Award at one of the United States’ oldest film festivals.
The WorldFest International Film Festival’s jury award is a categorical representation of a gold medal. “American Crisis” was selected as one of a handful of winners in the ecological and environmental category and went on to win the Remi Special Jury Award, or overall award, in its category.
In addition to this, the 30-minute film was selected out of over 4,100 other submissions as one of few finalists for the Grand Remi, which is the festival’s best overall award.
“I think it’s not only going to make a good opinion of the university in the local, regional and maybe national population, but every time they see that film air, and there it says ‘Production of Southeastern Louisiana University,’ more people in the nation are going to say ‘That’s a place that’s making things happen,'” said Dr. Samuel Hyde, director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies.
Hyde worked closely with his assistant director, Dr. Keith Finley, as well as students working with the center to organize the project, which took about two years to complete. Southeastern Channel General Manager Rick Settoon and Operations Manager Steve Zaffuto helped co-produce the documentary. “American Crisis” was intended to follow and complement a previous work produced by the center titled “The Manchac Swamp: Man-made Disaster in Search of a Resolution” that chronicled the history of the swamp to where it is today. Where the Manchac film focused on what the area has gone through, “American Crisis” is building on the concept by pointing out the coming consequences of Louisiana’s wetland loss.
“We’ve cast it as not just a Louisiana problem, but a national problem,” said Hyde. “As the coastline erodes away, it’s going to go further and further, it’s going to impact more and more people who live further north, economically and physically.”
Hyde said that it was pointed out to him recently by a Fox reporter that if the issues facing Louisiana were cast on a state such as California, public outcry would be immediate, and funds would be forthcoming.
“We have been sorely neglected down here,” said Hyde. “We’re past the point of just being able to study and restudy this and talk about this. The time for action is now. It’s truly going to change the way we live soon.”
The problems facing Louisiana are complex; biological, financial and even mental situations all contribute to wetland loss and degradation of Louisiana’s environment overall. Invasive species harm the ecosystem’s balance, and cypress forest logging and waste dumping cause further harm. Louisianians’ spending habits and environmental concern and care for their state need to change in order to begin turning the coastal damage around.
“When you travel the country, there are beautiful spots all over, but you don’t find them like what we have here in Louisiana,” said Hyde. “It is truly unique, and it is a crime that we have neglected [the wetlands] the way that we have.”