Restoring Land - Restoryng People: Meeting the Human Challenges of Living with Change

Southern Louisiana has embarked on an ambitious plan to protect and restore land and deal more effectively with the impacts of land subsidence and sea-level rise. While climate change is not an explicit focus, the plan reflects both more conventional approaches to adaptation, as well as potentially transformative ones. Remarkably, the 2012 Louisiana Coastal Master Plan acknowledges that not all land, communities, and resources can be saved. It therefore also acknowledges the need for effective engagement of the impacted public. The paper will lay out the difficult demands on, and practical realities, of engagement efforts in meeting the challenges that affected communities now face: the prospects of growing risks from hurricanes and sea level rise without protective measures, the impacts of disruptive restoration activities, and/or the need for relocation. Several efforts are underway to explore what effective stakeholder engagement in this context might look like. The paper will present insights gained to date.