Atchafalaya region praised for cultural, tourism value

CATAHOULA - The bayou setting is typical of southern Louisiana: waterways lined with cypress and live oak trees dripping with moss.

Tour guide June Borel points out heron and egrets flapping their wings in lazy flight, as her Catahoula hound naps on the bottom of the aluminum boat.

For many southern Louisiana residents these sights are commonplace, but Brenda Barrett of the National Park Service marveled at what she was hearing and seeing last week on Borel's excursion just outside the Atchafalaya Basin in St. Martin Parish south of Henderson.

"This is truly lovely," Barrett said.

Barrett, coordinator of heritage areas for the National Park Service, toured part of the 13-parish area under development for the Atchafalaya Trace Heritage Area.

The goal is to make local residents aware of the region's unique offerings, cultural and topographical, and to introduce those qualities to tourists, said Jason Stagg, executive director of the Atchafalaya Trace Commission.

Barrett said she was impressed with what she saw.

"This is one of the really exciting cultural areas in the whole country," she said while riding in the boat. "This has all the elements of a world-class heritage area."

Barrett made the stop Wednesday before traveling to a national conference of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas at Natchitoches, site of the Cane River Creole National Heritage Area. It is the only heritage area in Louisiana and only one of 23 in the U.S.

Barrett said the primary goal of a heritage area is not so much development of tourism as it is making an area's cultural knowledge and opportunities available to people - local or otherwise - who seek out cultural experiences.

Barrett said a heritage area keeps a unique regional culture intact, preserving what is authentic and genuine. It's like opening the veil of an area's culture to expose a slice of life that might otherwise go unnoticed by travelers as well as locals, she explained.

"This is the kind of thing people aren't going to get in other cities," she said.

Heritage areas have been developed around areas that don't fall under the category of a park, she said. For example, a heritage area designated in Pennsylvania focuses on the oil industry's genesis near Titusville, and another is around the anthracite coal mining region.

Barrett said it's not up to the NPS to name a region for heritage- area status. Instead, she said, a member of a state's congressional delegation must take the initiative and introduce legislation creating the area.

Barrett said the Atchafalaya Trace isn't quite ready for consideration.

Stagg said a management plan being developed will detail how features of the heritage area will be coordinated and presented to visitors, and how federal funds could be spent to preserve the area's culture.

"We try to look for opportunities for local businesses like June's tours," Stagg said.

The trace area isn't to be limited to the physical confines of the Atchafalaya Basin, he said, and much of it would be outside the levee system.

With heritage-area designation would come federal funds for heritage-area projects, and help from the NPS, Barrett said.

Stagg is enthusiastic about the potential for the trace.

"One of the goals is to make the Atchafalaya Basin a household name like the Everglades," Stagg said.

But he said he believes the Atchafalaya region has an advantage over southern Florida.

"The Everglades doesn't have the cultural component that we have here."