Houma site to celebrate World Wetlands Day

It’s not as well known as Earth Day, but World Wetlands Day has been celebrated since 1997 to bring attention to marsh and swampland conditions around the globe.

Terrebonne Parish will be participating for the first time in the event, which is held annually on Feb. 2 and whose theme this year is “Upstream-Downstream: Wetlands Connect Us All.”

Students from Southdown Elementary School and St. Francis de Sales Cathedral School will be at the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum in Houma from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. learning about wetlands and the environment. The event is sponsored by the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center.

Representatives from several state agencies will conduct educational activities.

LSU’s Wildlife Hospital of Louisiana is displaying rescued wild birds; the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will have wild animal pelts, allowing students to feel their texture; the LSU AgCenter will do rubber fish imprints on paper; and Mike Voisin with Motivatit Seafoods will be opening oysters for the students, showing them the bivalve’s parts.

The Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program is also conducting hands-on activities.

Waterlife Museum mascot Rosie the Rosette Spoonbill will be at the event welcoming students.

The Feb. 2 date marks the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar.

The convention designates 1,828 wetland sites worldwide as having international importance, comprising 423 million acres (169 million hectares).

Surprisingly, no sites in south Louisiana are on the convention’s list of internationally important wetlands. Only Catahoula Lake in central Louisiana is on the list.

The Discovery Center’s foundation is trying to fund the construction of a facility on parish-donated land adjacent to the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.

Legislation passed in 2008 established a state commission to oversee the Discovery Center.

“Once the commission gets placed, we anticipate it moving forward,” said Jonathan Foret, the center’s development consultant. “The construction is dependent on the economy and how the commission works with the state.”

“Community interest is there, but with the economic situation, everyone is cautious,” he said. “Not to say this facility will not be built.”

Foret said the center’s sponsorship of World Wetlands Day is a positive step.

“This shows what the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center can bring without a facility,” he said. “We bring awareness to the community, also hands-on activities for students.”

The Discovery Center foundation contacted the convention to find out how to participate in World Wetlands Day. The center was provided with educational materials.

Other sponsors of the event are the Houma Downtown Development Corporation, South Central Planning and Development Commission, and DANECO Inc.

A former Peace Corps volunteer who has been a fixture in the area’s cultural community, Foret will soon take a job in Bangladesh with the Persons with Disabilities Self-Initiative to Development program.

The program is run by an association of disabled persons in Bangladesh and is trying to develop a model for people with disabilities, Foret, a native of Chauvin, said.

Foret is waiting for approval from the Bangladesh embassy before he can leave.

Jonathan Foret (left), a local consultant for the Discovery Center in Houma, will soon leave his post for a job in Bangladesh with the Persons with Disabilities Self-Initiative to Development program. The Chauvin native is waiting for approval from the Bangladesh embassy before he can leave. * Photo courtesy of JONATHAN FORET