"The wetlands of the Mississippi Delta are disappearing with severe consequences for the whole Gulf coast, its people, its industries and its environment.

The Delta's wetlands are being destroyed at a rate equal to 30 football fields a day. As with the land, the people are also disappearing from the region. The Bayou communities feel neglected and forgotten, and are under constant threat from a rising sea.

In this Al Jazeera special Nick Clark travels on Highway 1 through what remains of this once prosperous region that today represents a warning of things to come.

In the second part of the programme, we go to Isle de Jean Charles. It is a narrow ridge of land, belonging to what is left of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe, a Native American people that lived there for hundreds of years.

Albert Naquin, the chief of the tribe, recently announced that the group will have to leave their ancestral land and move north and go behind levees on higher ground."

Get the Story:
Losing Louisiana (Al Jazeera 12/12)

Also Today:
La. Indian village holds out against plea to move (AP 12/14)

Related Stories:
Louisiana tribe, battered by storms, may move (9/23)
Louisiana tribes losing way of life along water (07/20)