Portrait of Jonathon Moll — a Louisiana Crab Fisherman

The world ahead of us won’t be the same, that’s for sure and photography is the perfect medium to document the change and evolution for future generations. I travel to meet people and hear their story. How’s life now and what will be different in the future? Hear people out. That’s what today’s feature by Jason Kerzinski is all about… (Your work featured here? Submit your stories.)

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By Jason Kerzinski:

Jonathon Moll

For the last year, I have been spending time with Jonathon Moll a crab fisherman living in Lafitte, Louisiana. We have spent many days on his boat in Bayou Dupont discussing the changing ecosystem. Since the creation of the levee system in the late 1800's the the bayous have been depleted of sediment. The Mississippi was forever altered now that man controlled it's movement in order to protect communities along the river such as New Orleans. These days, in Louisiana, politicians are trying to figure out how to rebuild the land that is dissipating rapidly. We lose a football field of land a day. The two plans being talked about are river diversion which is a 50 year project that will bring in more water to the bayous and very little sediment to rebuild the land in the bayous. Jonathon is not for that project. The most effective plan is pipelining sediment directly into the bayou and building land and later planting native species of trees and other plants. In 2009, Bayou Dupont in Lafitte was the first to have an island built from pipelining sediment. Another project like this hasn't happened since 2009 because it is not cost effective.

About the photographer

Jason Kerzinski is a street photographer and photo journalist who has worked on many local assignments in New Orleans for Antigravity, a monthly newspaper. His features have focused on criminal justice reform.
http://www.jasonkerzinski.com