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As a participant in the NOLA Anthropocene Campus, I have gained insights on how communities, stewards, and managers of ecosystems in New Orleans have rolled out forms of interspecies care vis-à-vis ongoing environmental changes, coastal erosion, climate catastrophes and their deeply present and current effects (i.e., the 2010 BP oil disaster). Whilst much analytical lens has been given to geospatial changes in the study of the Anthropocene, here, I focus on how relations to non-human beings, also threatened by the changing tides of NOLA’s waterscapes, can enrich our understanding of such global transformations.

After disasters like Katrina, urban floodwaters harbored many hidden perils in the form of microbes that cause disease. Pathogenic bacterial exposure occurred when wastewater treatment plants and underground sewage got flooded, thus affecting the microbial landscape of New Orleans and increasing the potential of public health risks throughout Southern Louisiana. But one need not wait for a disaster event like Katrina to face these perils. Quotidian activities like decades of human waste and sewage pollution have contaminated public beaches now filled with lurking microbes. Even street puddle waters, such as those found on Bourbon Street, contain unsanitary bacteria level from years of close human exploitation of horses and inadequate drainage in 100-year old thoroughfares. More recently, microbial ecologies have also changed in the Gulf of Mexico due to the harnessing of energy resources like petroleum. Lush habitats for countless species are more and more in danger sounding the bells of extinction for the imperiled southern wild.

Human-alteration has severely damaged the wetland marshes and swamps that would have protected New Orleans from drowning in the water surge that Hurricane Katrina brought from the Gulf of Mexico. The latter is something that lifelong residents (i.e., indigenous coastal groups) of the Mississippi River Mouth have been pointing to for a  long time. Over the past century, the river delta’s “natural” infrastructure has been altered by the leveeing of the Mississippi River. Consequently, much of the silt and sediments that would generally run south and deposit in the river mouth to refeed the delta get siphoned off earlier upstream by various irrigation systems.

While some actors see it as a futile effort, there have been many proposals to restore the Mississippi River Delta. For instance, the aerial planting of mangrove seeds has even been recommended to help protect the struggling marshes and Louisiana’s coastal region. Tierra Resources, a wetland’s restoration company, proposed that bombing Lousiana’s coast with mangrove seeds could save it. Mangrove root systems are especially useful in providing structures to trap sediments and provide habitats for countless species. Additionally, mangroves have been touted as highly efficient species in carbon sequestration, thus taking carbon dioxide out of the biosphere.

Species diffusion into new environments has been of great concern for the different lifeways these soggy localities sustain, whether human or non-human. Many so-called “invasive species” have been identified throughout the river delta by researchers at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research hosted by Tulane and Xavier University. Such species have disrupted local ecological relations and practices and have had profound economic effects. Some plants have even entirely blocked waterways in the swamps and estuaries where salt and freshwater mix. 

Louisiana’s humid subtropical climate, and the diverse ecosystems therein, also warrant attention in that they can incubate some of the world’s deadliest parasites and other microbes. Of particular concern would be some of today's Neglected Tropical Diseases (i.e., Chagas, Cysticercosis, Dengue fever, Leishmaniasis, Schistosomiasis, Trachoma, Toxocariasis, and West Nile virus) often perceived as only affecting tropical regions of Latin America and revealing the enduring legacies of colonial health disparities.

How and when are seemingly quotidian events and upsets understood as not isolated but rather as produced in conjunction with other anthropocenics worldwide? What roles will interspecies relations and forms of care play as we cope with further anthropocenic agitation?

NOLA’s oldest tree, McDonogh Oak in City Park, 800 years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9YoGpng_c&t=0s

Other trees in New Orleans: https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/new-orleans-louisiana/trees

"It is tempting for a medical social scientist to enumerate the cultural beliefs concerning thecause and workings of epilepsy, then compare these with beliefs in other societies. People of course reason about illness, and culture provides the logic of that rationality. I have resisted, however, focusing on the structure of reasoning. The transformation of these narratives and the modes of aesthetic response associated with stories into "beliefs" or "explanation" would be extremely misleading."

"I began this chapter with questions about the relation of "fainting" to "epilepsy" in Turkish culture provoked by Meliha Hanim' s stories about her illness. Through the course of our research it became clear that epilepsy belongs in popular discourse to the larger domain of "fainting." This should come as no surprise, not only because fainting is less stigmatizing than epilepsy in Turkish culture."

"Emine was silent. Her story was told exclusively by those around her."

Most of the argument is developed through the  Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) essays and reactions to the compilation. Laws, humanitarian efforts, and wars are also studied.

Many other research papers, articles, books, and sources of research were referencd in the article. The author read and studied a lot of research in various areas and covering all of the topics discussed in this paper, then strengthened ideas and concepts with enough support from hard research to write this article.

I was most interested by how hard the doctors worked beyond the medical stuff to care for the patients. Whether it is making sure they have somewhere warm to be discharged to or keeping them long enough that they can get the medicaltions they need, they really do more than medicine.

Paul E Farmer, Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, Salmaan Keshavjee are listed as the authors of this paper. They work with the health workers  in suffering countries, like Haiti. Farmer is a co-founder of Partners in Health, as well as a physician and anthropologist. Stulac is an MD, MPH, specializing in pediatrics, and is also associated with PIH. Keshavjee is an MD, PhD, professor at Harvard of Global Health and Social Medicine. They are all professionals in the field of medicine, and through the PIH, they are well acquainted with responding to global health issues.