Restaurants in New Orleans are recycling oyster shells to save precious coastline

NEW ORLEANS — For Theresa Dardar and her husband Donald, a boat ride through the picturesque Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes and surrounding marsh in Southeast Louisiana has become a painful reminder of what’s been lost. As Louisiana’s coast disappears, important cultural sites like their ancestral tribal mounds are being swallowed up.

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“It’s heartbreaking,” said the Dardars, who are leaders in the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe. For years, members of this Indigenous community felt helpless as they watched chunks of sacred land drop into the water. These structures, built by Native peoples and considered spiritual centers, are older than Stonehenge or the ancient pyramids in Eqypt.

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