For Rashida Ferdinand, getting into Sankofa Wetland Park is like strolling again in time. Rising up within the Decrease Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Ferdinand and different neighborhood youngsters spent their days exploring the wetland. However slowly, over time, the land fell into disrepair as a consequence of a long time of state neglect, which solely worsened within the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Now, because of a collaboration between native residents and the Sankofa Community Development Corporation (CDC), which Ferdinand based in 2008, the realm has been restored to its earlier pure glory and is formally referred to as the Sankofa Wetland Park and Nature Path. A nonprofit centered on neighborhood well being and creating financial alternative within the Decrease Ninth, Sankofa CDC has labored carefully with the residents over the previous few years on the mission. Trying on the ambling paths and thriving cypress timber winding across the park’s central pond, it’s laborious for even Ferdindand to imagine the realm was an overgrown lot stuffed with trash not even 10 years in the past. “Seeing butterflies, birds, and different pollinators within the park is an indication of a wholesome ecosystem,” she says. “All we needed to do was create the suitable situations.”
In 2017, Sankofa CDC entered right into a partnership with the Metropolis of New Orleans to develop the 40-acre vacant plot alongside the Decrease Ninth’s northern edge with a daring imaginative and prescient: to revive the wetland ecosystem as a buffer in opposition to flooding whereas additionally bringing financial improvement to the realm. Sankofa CDC doesn’t personal the land within the type of a deed, eschewing transactional definitions of land possession for one thing extra collective. Now in its closing part, the park has develop into not only a rejuvenated inexperienced area, however an oasis for wildlife and residents.
The Decrease Ninth’s infrastructure challenges inform a narrative of historic neglect. Crumbling roads and inadequate drainage methods have lengthy plagued the realm. Coupled with its low-lying elevation and proximity to the Mississippi River, the ward stays significantly weak to flooding after excessive storms. Wetlands—identified for his or her capacity to soak up stormwater—are a much-needed resilience measure in opposition to more and more extreme climate fueled by local weather change.
“As a child I bear in mind often seeing my neighbors get round with boats after a tough rain, as a result of the water went as much as our porch,” Ferdinand says. Her household survived Hurricane Betsy, a Class 4 hurricane that flooded 164,000 properties in 1965, lengthy earlier than Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. The storm surge from Katrina breached town’s system of levees and pumps supposed to carry again water, submerging 80 p.c of New Orleans. The Decrease Ninth was floor zero of the hurricane’s destruction.
The Decrease Ninth has a wealthy cultural heritage, producing influential musicians like Fat Domino and celebrating traditions like second-line parades and Mardi Gras. Earlier than Katrina, the neighborhood had one of many highest rates of Black home ownership within the metropolis. Now, solely a 3rd of the unique original 14,000 residents remain, and blighted heaps are a typical sight. Having confronted the devastation of a number of hurricanes, residents care deeply about local weather resilience. “Hurricane safety is a serious concern in the neighborhood, however there’s a scarcity of belief within the infrastructure methods which might be supposed to guard us,” Ferdinand says.
When Sankofa CDC secured the derelict stretch of land, the group and locals noticed a chance to create this resilience and revitalize the neighborhood. Working with the rivers, trails, and conservation assistance program throughout the Nationwide Park Service, Sankofa CDC hosted neighborhood conferences to achieve suggestions at every stage of the park’s design. Insights from these conferences knowledgeable the park’s master plan and amenities, together with a multi-use path for strolling and biking that residents requested. Although Sankofa CDC spearheaded the restoration effort, native volunteers had been integral: They uprooted greater than a thousand invasive tallow timber and planted new, native flora. The mission additionally confronted surprising challenges, like when employees uncovered over 27,000 cubic meters of trash underground, which required particular gear to take away and delayed their timeline.
All collectively, greater than 500 bald cypress and water tupelo timber—native species identified to face up to heavy storm winds—together with 1,000 herbaceous crops had been planted all through the park. In the meantime, ponds working the size of the park are designed to retain extra rainwater throughout storms whereas offering a cool habitat in an in any other case sizzling, city panorama. These preliminary enhancements attracted wildlife not seen within the space because the Nineteen Sixties. The park is now dwelling to reptiles, amphibians, beavers, and otters, and greater than 100 species of birds have been noticed on the grounds.
Along with flood prevention, Ferdinand and her Sankofa CDC colleagues additionally view the mission as a chance to revive a pure useful resource that was taken from residents. In 1963 the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers built a channel to attach the Gulf of Mexico with New Orleans’ interior harbor. Consequently, saltwater from the Gulf degraded greater than 31 miles of wetlands throughout coastal New Orleans, together with swampland within the Decrease Ninth. It quickly turned a barren scrub forest and web site for unlawful dumping.
These preliminary enhancements attracted wildlife not seen within the space because the Nineteen Sixties.
“Rising up, we used to catch crawfish, crab, gar fish, and hunt rabbits within the swamp. We even used the timber for lumber,” says Keith Craft, a lifelong Decrease Ninth resident because the Fifties who’s now a Sankofa Wetland Park Ambassador. Craft has a deep relationship with the Decrease Ninth, after evacuating throughout Katrina and returning to rebuild his dwelling. “When the swamp dried up, it felt like one thing was stolen from us, as a result of it helped us put meals on the desk.” The hope is {that a} renewed wetland will provide a leisure area for birding, fishing, and different pursuits.
“Now that the wetlands have been restored, resident birds are lastly coming again,” says Jason Day, a wetland scientist who conducts environmental monitoring of the park for Comite Sources, an environmental consulting agency. He continues to be amazed on the range of migrant and resident chook species noticed in quarterly chook surveys. Egrets, herons, geese, and every kind of shorebirds are mainstays, and Roseate Spoonbills and Blue Grosbeaks have gotten extra frequent.
Within the final 5 years, the park has even develop into a hotspot for town’s birding neighborhood, particularly in mild of uncommon chook sightings. “Sankofa was one of many first locations you possibly can reliably see a Limpkin in Louisiana,” says Peter Yaukey, a biology professor who leads month-to-month birding hikes there. The park’s unmanaged woods with fruiting mulberry timber, freshwater, and dense vegetation alongside its edges are significantly engaging for migrating birds. “Birds migrating throughout the Gulf of Mexico typically wind up in New Orleans scrambling to seek out habitat to refuel for the remainder of their journey,” Yaukey says. “Sankofa has loads of mature timber with thick understory that are actually missing in city landscapes—it’s really a refuge for migratory birds.”
Slated for completion within the fall of 2025 with an out of doors amphitheater and extra trails, the park now contains picnic areas, interpretive signage, outside recreation amenities, a fishing dock, and a wheelchair-accessible path that connects the Decrease Ninth to adjoining neighborhoods. Sankofa CDC employees hope that the park’s rising recognition will spur broader financial funding within the Decrease Ninth: new small companies, the rebuilding of properties, and patronage from birders and different vacationers. Workers are additionally mobilizing support to revive a bigger wetland simply north of the park, which would supply much more ecological providers to the realm.
Within the meantime, the park is already yielding neighborhood advantages. As a result of Sankofa Wetland Park is situated on the lowest-lying level within the Decrease Ninth, stormwater that might in any other case flood close by streets is absorbed by the wetland park’s pond. Anecdotally, the park absorbed some extra rainwater from Hurricane Ida in 2021, although Comite Sources continues to be working to quantify the wetland’s storage capability. Residents frequently jog alongside the park’s winding trails and manage gatherings in its open area. Sankofa CDC additionally hosts environmental instructional applications within the park, affording college students direct alternatives to interact with nature.
Regardless of some setbacks alongside the best way, the Sankofa Wetland Park is the collective dream of generations previous and current, in accordance with Ferdinand. “There’s a distinctive magnificence in restoring what was already there,” she says. “It’s how we honor the stewards earlier than us who revered this land and noticed its worth from the very starting.”