Southeastern Louisiana University

Environmental reporter & photographer to discuss wetlands loss at Maritime Museum meeting

Contact: Rene Abadie

1/11/06

HAMMOND -- New Orleans photographer Bevil Kapp and Baton Rouge reporter Mike Dunne, authors of the recently released book “America’s Wetland—Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast,” will be the featured speakers at the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum’s January membership meeting.

The presentation will be held Wednesday, Jan. 18, immediately following the 7 p.m. meeting at the Madisonville museum. The lecture is part of an ongoing speaker series held in conjunction with the museum’s quarterly membership meetings, said Roy Blackwood, coordinator of Southeastern Louisiana University Education Initiatives at the museum.

“This is such a timely presentation, considering all the attention that has been focused on our vanishing wetlands,” Blackwood said. “Mike Dunne’s insightful commentary and Bevil Knapp’s startling photography vividly tell the story of the catastrophic effects that wetlands loss has on our region and nation.”

“America’s Wetland” is published by the LSU Press and was released just before hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck. The book includes photos of areas later devastated by the storms as well as a prophetic chapter about how New Orleans could be swamped by a category 3 hurricane.

A member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Dunn writes for the “The Advocate” and is a two-time winner of the Scripps-Howard Foundation’s Edward Meeman Award. Knapp is a member of the National Press Photographers Association and has won numerous awards for photographic work in advertising and reporting.

For additional information about the lecture, contact the Maritime Museum at 985-845-9200.