You missed a good meeting if you didn’t get by. Atchafalaya Basin Program Executive Director Steve Chutz came by and gave us an update on the Annual Plan, which has now been approved, unchanged, by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and is ready to be forwarded to the Legislature. The CPRA also agreed to submit the request for $1.5 million for the Resource Inventory and Assessment Tool for the ABP. This cooperation between Coastal and Atchafalaya Programs is welcome news to Basin watchers. An integrated approach to the problems of the wetlands should help us to deal with all the problems without damaging one area to benefit another.
The Board asked Steve to serve as an Advisor to the Friends, along with Paul Davidson of the Black Bear Conservation Committee. They join Debra Credeur of the Atchafalaya Trace Heritage Area, Randy Lanctot of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, and Jon and Jocelyn Donlon, educators who have worked on Atchafalaya Basin Lesson Plans through the ABP in the past and who served on the Friends Board until they moved to Japan to teach English and learn another culture.
The Board also welcomed Karen Westphal of the Audubon Society as a new member. Karen works with Paul Kemp as the Atchafalaya Basin Coordinator and we hope to have a productive relationship as Karen dives into Basin activities and we get to work with Audubon in the future.
The Friends are starting to move ahead and we hope that you will join us in our efforts to work together with all the and government and non-governmental organizations that have interests in the Basin. Our role is to keep you informed and to help folks work together to improve the quality of life for all species in the Basin, from humans on up.
Watch for information about the April meetings of the Friends. April is our annual membership meeting, so plan to come to Baton Rouge to see us and find out what’s new in the Basin. I’ll post info on the time and place in the next few weeks. We can use some young blood to help us with boat landing clean-ups, Experience Atchafalaya Days events and just keeping track of activities around and affecting the Atchafalaya Basin.
If you have information that you think others could use, send me a message (charlesc a_t basinbuddies.org) or comment on one of these messages. (You have to register on these news pages to post a comment. This is to protect us from spammers.)
More later…
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