Michael Roberts and Tracy Kuhns on the canal behind their house in Lafitte, LA. Photo: Ilene Perlman/Oxfam America

Last week I took a memorable ride in a very small boat. The flat-bottomed skiff belonged to Tracy Kuhns and Michael Roberts, leaders of Oxfam’s partner organization GO FISH, who keep it moored alongside their shrimping boat on the canal that borders their backyard.

In Lafitte, LA, where Kuhns and Roberts live, these canals are like streets, connecting families to one another and workers to their jobs. Neighbors waved to us as we cast off for a short trip from the nearby Mississippi River to the marsh-fringed Barataria Bay.

For generations, families in Lafitte and the surrounding communities have earned a living by harvesting fish, shrimp, and oysters from these waters. And until 2010—when the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill dumped millions of gallons into the Louisiana bayou—it seemed like the next generation would, too.

“My grandson has been going trawling since he was 18 months old. The boy can fish,” Kuhns told me proudly as Roberts steered the boat out under the wide, cloud-streaked sky. “Before the oil spill, he never even thought about doing anything else.”

Now, Kuhns and Roberts say, the spill has caused lasting, perhaps irreparable, damage to a resource already threatened by pollution and coastal erosion.

“Barataria Bay was ground zero for all of that oil,” said Kuhns, who witnessed layers of black sludge floating to the surface. Since then, she estimated, “our shrimp [harvest] is down by 60 to 70 percent. Fish and crabs, same thing.”

Last Thursday, BP pled guilty in a criminal case brought by the US Department of Justice. The company agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines for its conduct leading up to the oil spill, the largest environmental disaster in US history. The verdict marks a step forward, but there is still much more to be done, including resolution of up to tens of billions more in civil penalties and damages from BP and potentially its business partners for violations of the Oil Pollution Act and Clean Water Act.

“We still have to repair the damage done to vital and fragile ecosystems, and to the thousands of families who live and work along the coastline,” said Oxfam’s Jeffrey Buchanan. (Read his latest post on BP here.) “We need to ensure the fines from this tragedy can be invested in strengthening their future.”

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Somewhere in Grand Isle, Louisiana, on a road so remote that our GPS thought we were now in a boat on the Gulf of Mexico, it started raining. And then it rained some more. It rained so hard that our small Oxfam film crew of myself, Shannon Hart-Reed, Sarah Livingston, and Michael Prince had to pull over. After several days and hundreds of miles shooting footage for a music video Oxfam was doing in partnership with The New Pornographers, all of us were ready to go home. We were exhausted, drenched, and hungry with nowhere to go – literally. The road ahead of us was flooded, and the road to our right was closed, by British Petroleum, which created the largest environmental disaster in US history, bungled the clean-up process, and somehow managed to dispossess the authorities of the power to manage their own beaches as evidenced by their hand-drawn cardboard “Beach Closed” sign tacked to the telephone pole behind us.

That forced pit stop was a long way from the Saturday night party where Oxfam received an Emmy for the music video. When our music outreach specialist Bob Ferguson stood up to say a few words of thanks after receiving the award he said what I think we all felt in that car in the middle of the rainstorm – and throughout the filming: the video, the award, the music and the work are all part of our effort to “raise awareness that the situation in the Gulf is far from over,” and make sure the people of the Gulf Coast, and in particular those most affected by the oil spill and Hurricane Katrina, are heard.

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Big news, all: I’m very proud to present the world debut of Oxfam America’s video for the song “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” by iconic indie-rockers The New Pornographers.

And this isn’t your ordinary music video. Produced and directed by Oxfam’s Shannon Hart-Reed, it focuses on the aftermath of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

The Gulf Coast oil spill is making headlines right now as one of the biggest stories of the year. But come January 2011, we don’t want the most vulnerable people in this area to be forgotten. Today, over six months after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal communities affected by one of the worst environmental disasters in US history are fighting to make their voices heard loud and clear. Oxfam is working with these communities to ensure that the recovery process doesn’t pass over those most affected by this disaster. (Learn more about Oxfam’s work in the US.)

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Women dig through anthills in search of small amounts of grain the insects have stored there. Photo by Oxfam

“Five years ago the world ignored warning signs from Niger, failed to act rapidly, and lives were lost. The international community cannot make the same mistake again.”

Those are the words of Mamadou Biteye, a regional director for Oxfam in West Africa sounding the alarm for a food crisis that, so far, has failed to penetrate the consciousness of much of the western world. The stunning thing is it’s affecting 10 million people across the Sahel region of West Africa—10 million people who are scrambling to find enough to eat.

What does that mean?

For women in the Chadian village of Djaya, it means rising early and spending the day under the hot sun digging through anthills in search of small cashes of grain stored there by insects. If they’re lucky, some of them can scrape together about five and a half pounds from a day’s work. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a moment of déjà vu this weekend when I saw the headline on CNN.com: “Vietnamese fishermen in Gulf fight to not get lost in translation.”  When I interviewed Biloxi, MS, community leader Sharon Hanshaw on May 18, she spoke about the exact same issue—the cultural and language barriers faced by Vietnamese fishermen in the wake of the BP oil spill.

Sharon Hanshaw, right, attends a meeting of grassroots groups, coordinated by Oxfam, at a church in Boothville, LA. Photo: Audra Melton/Oxfam America

“The Vietnamese-American community is the majority of fishermen here. It’s their livelihood,” Hanshaw told me. But, she added, many Vietnamese fishermen don’t have computers or internet access—and key resources, like the BP insurance claims phone line, don’t provide Vietnamese translators.

“In East Biloxi, the Vietnamese community was left out during the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina,” added Hanshaw.  “Many are afraid it will happen again.”

It’s an understandable fear, and it’s not limited to Biloxi. According to CNN’s Jessica Ravitz, “a third of all fishermen in the Gulf are Vietnamese, making them arguably the most affected minority out there.” New Orleans East has the highest concentration of Vietnamese people in the world outside of Vietnam. Many came to the area as refugees after the end of the Vietnam War, and were among those who faced heavy losses during Hurricane Katrina.

Now, the oil spill poses a new threat to Vietnamese-American fishermen, seafood industry workers, restaurateurs, and thousands of others who rely on the Gulf waters for their livelihoods.

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Oxfam's Rhonda Jackson confronts the oil spill on the coast of Louisiana, the state that has been her lifelong home. Photo by

Rhonda Jackson is an Oxfam America Gulf Coast program manager. Here is the second part of her account of what she saw on a recent field visit through Louisiana’s marshes.

Read part one

I returned to the marina saddened, angry, hurt—and confused. Then, I spoke with local residents. I talked to folks who had lived and worked here for generations. I talked to fishermen, oysterman, local sheriffs, and business owners. Our conversations gave me hope; I was reminded of the resiliency of my fellow Louisiana residents. I was reminded that even if there is only a glimmer of hope, we will find a reason to stay in the battle. I was reminded why I do this work—why Oxfam does this work—because in order to stay in the battle, these folks are going to need to be armed with a few things. Read the rest of this entry »

The oil-soaked marshes were silent when Rhonda Jackson toured them recently. Photo by Audra Melton/Oxfam America

Rhonda Jackson is an Oxfam America Gulf Coast program manager. Here is her account of what she saw on a recent field visit through Louisiana’s marshes.

I have often said that—unlike most folks in my line of work—I’m no tree-hugger. I love people. I do this work because I want people to have the best. Yet, on a recent tour of the oil-soaked coast of Louisiana, I couldn’t help but want to hug each and every blade of marsh grass, to apologize on behalf of all humankind for this huge mess. I was saddened, angry, and hurt. I knew that what I was seeing was the end of something.

As a life-long resident of New Orleans and having survived Katrina, I know what the end of something beautiful and wonderful looks and feels like. I know that while things can and will eventually get better, they will never quite be the same and that those with the least will suffer and struggle the most. I know this because up until this oil spill, I had personally survived what had been called the worst disaster in America. I know this because while many of my own friends and family members survived, we are all different. I know this because while it is five years since Katrina, I am still in my own private battle with the state of Louisiana over its recovery and homeowner assistance program known as the Road Home. I know this because my grandmother, like many other elders in the area, died heartbroken soon after the storm. Read the rest of this entry »

Constance Okollet, from Uganda, and Sharon Hanshaw, from the US, bonded this week at the climate talks in Copenhagen. Photo by Emily Gertz.

Emily Gertz is a freelance journalist, editor, and blogger covering the environment, technology, science, and sustainability. She reported on the Copenhagen climate talks on behalf of Oxfam America.

When Sharon Hanshaw walks into the lobby of the Hotel Copenhagen, Constance Okollet’s face breaks into an enormous smile. In a minute she is standing up from the sofa to fold Hanshaw into an enormous hug.

Soon they are sitting on the couch with their heads together, Okollet’s wiry black hair touching Hanshaw’s bright blond bangs. They trade news of their families and homes, and then move on to strategizing about how Okollet might do fundraising for the community organizing group she founded, the Osukura United Women Network.

Okollet is a farmer from the rural Tororo district in eastern Uganda. Hanshaw is a cosmetologist from East Biloxi, Mississippi. The two women have become close friends while traveling long distances to bear witness to the devastating impacts of climate change on their communities.

While talking on the couch, Okollet gets a call on her mobile from her husband, back home in Uganda. She passes the phone to Hanshaw, who jokes with him like she’s known the couple forever. In her Mississippi drawl, she offers to send him a package of her signature confection, homemade pralines.

Watching them laugh and joke together with so much fun and affection, it’s surprising to learn that the two women met only a few months ago, in New York City. They came in September 2009 for the United Nations Climate Summit, to make the case for funding to help poor nations adapt to climate change. Hanshaw is the first “climate witness” in this program who is from a rich, industrialized nation.

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When I first moved to Alabama five years ago, just about all I knew about the state was that it was hot, and Montgomery was known as both the cradle of the Confederacy and the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. But mostly, it was hot. So last week when we had what amounted to a cold snap—about three days of weather in the 50s—conversations usually started with some variation on the theme of global warming: “So much for global warming,” someone would say. Or, “We really could use some of that global warming about now.”

If only it were that easy to turn global warming on and off like a switch. For a lot of us, global warming is a euphemism for climate change, something we don’t fully understand, something happening somewhere else—certainly “not in my backyard.”  Even in sweltering Alabama, we don’t talk about global warming until it gets cold. But climate change is happening, and it is in our backyard.

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In the year following Hurricane Katrina, Cleo and Martin Sylvester lived in a FEMA trailer while they put together the financing they needed to rebuild their own home. Photo by Steve Thackston/Oxfam America

On the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina , Andrew Blejwas, one of our colleagues who has been working with many of the communities on the US Gulf Coast, looks back on the long years that have passed since that storm turned so many lives upside down and revealed so much about injustices in our country. Here are a few of his thoughts:

Four years after Katrina, a lot has changed. Many homes are rebuilt, there are far fewer trailers than there were just a year ago, and communities are beginning to get back on their feet. But not much has changed either. There should not be more homes to rebuild, there should not be any families still living in trailers, and communities should have more support getting back on their feet.

Though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were one-time events, the issues they helped unmask in the region are pervasive and long-standing. It’s going to take more than just a few years worth of work to reverse the poverty and social injustice that are pervasive on the Gulf Coast of the US. Oxfam is making a commitment to address the long-term issues that affect the region and will continue to work with dedicated partners there who are already working tirelessly to do just that.