Cypress Plantings Help Save Coastal Wetlands

By Eve Abrams

New Orleans, Louisiana – For Christmas celebrants, December is often a time for cutting trees - usually pine or spruce -- bound for tinsel and blinking lights. But it's also a great time for planting trees. Last week, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana teamed up with the National Park Service and dozens of volunteers to plant 1000 bald cypress trees in a new wetland area restored from abandoned oil and gas canals in Jean Lafitte Park. These four foot cypress trees play a big part in an even bigger job: restoring the swamp, and New Orleans storm surge barrier, to its natural state. Eve Abrams sank into mud up to her knees to bring us this story.