Recommendations to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force

Restoration of America’s Gulf Coast, damaged not just by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike and the BP oil spill, but also by decades of degradation from human impacts and natural disasters, is essential for protection of the region’s communities and cultures. Protection of these resources is critical at the national level as well, playing vital roles in our nation’s waterways, commerce, and economy. As the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (“Task Force”), created by an executive order of President Barack Obama, develops its comprehensive restoration strategy, Oxfam and its partners Bayou Grace Community Services, Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO), Coastal Women for Change, STEPS Coalition, Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition
(TRAC), and Zion Travelers Cooperative Center—grassroots groups representing coastal communities in the lower Mississippi River Delta—offer the following recommendations to ensure that the region’s most vulnerable residents are active participants in revitalizing our coastal resources and beneficiaries of the new restoration economy. These recommendations represent a call to action for a bold, innovative, and integrated solution involving federal, state, and local governments and industry and community stakeholders.