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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

REMM (Radiation Emergency Medical Management) is produced by US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the National Library of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

According to Google Scholar, this article has been cited 85 times. This is a pretty large amount of citations, which are primarily articles regarding societal effects of distress and disasters. 

The article is published in the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology. It is meant for clinical oncologists and publishes articles on medical oncology, clinical trials, radiology, surgery, basic research, epidemiology, and palliative care. It was established in 1971 and is the first journal from Japan to publish clinical research on cancer in English. Since 1977, JJCO is a sister-journal to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and is linked through Oxford Journals. 

This PDF does not include the bibliography, but it is clear that a lot of the work is original due to his traveling and conducting of research. His citatiosn throughout the chapter indicate that he did reference other knowledgable and notable anthropologists and their work helped frame his argument. 

1. “…large­-scale social forces—racism, gender inequality, poverty, political violence and war, and sometimes the very policies that address them—often determine who falls ill and who has access to care.”
2. "the holy grail of modern medicine remains the search for the molecular basis of disease."
3. "In some senses, the model is simple: clinical and community barriers to care are removed as diagnosis and treatment are declared a public good and made available free of charge to patients living in poverty."
4. "The poor are the natural constituents of public health, and physicians ... are the natural attourneys of the poor."

This report does not address matters of disaster, but does dive into health issues faced by those discriminated against for being transgender and gender non-conforming.

1. I first looked up travel to and from Liberia during the Ebola outbreak, since it had been seized. There was a ban, which has since been lifted after, but people coming to and from West Africa are still screened and recommended to visit physicians. As of mid-2015 there wa still a 21 day monitoring period needed. http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/news/2015/05/cdc-downgrades-travel…'
2. I was interested if there had been any progress on treatment for Ebola, but found that the main form of treatment is supportive care. Doctors are informed to provide IV fluid and ensure that the patient's immune response and other bodily functions are functioning properly. A vaccine is being worked on but has not gone through a trial to prove safety and effectiveness. https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/treatment/index.html
3. I looked further into the vaccine being produced for Ebola. Currently, there is a combined phase 2 and phase 3 trial occurring in Sierra Leone called STRIVE (Sierra Leone Trial to Introduce a Vaccine against Ebola). The study is unblinded, so patients know whether or not they have received the vaccine. The vaccine is a rVSV-ZEBOV, or recombinant Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Zaire ebolavirus vaccine. This vaccine is also being used in phase 2 and phase 3 trials in Guinea and Liberia http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/strive/qa.html

The article's bibliography contains many references including the WHO, the Red Cross, and other organizations, as well as many other experts and professionals in the field.