9,000 discarded Christmas trees help restore New Orleans wetlands

New Orleans collected 9,000 discarded Christmas trees and airlifted them into coastal wetlands to help restore marshland.

The program, running for nearly 30 years, bundles trees and drops them into shallow wetlands to trap sediment, reduce wave energy, and support marsh grass growth.

The restored marsh is equivalent to nearly 200 football fields, and the effort is part of Louisiana's broader coastal protection measures.

Louisiana has lost nearly 2,000 square miles of coastal land since the 1930s due to erosion, storms, sea-level rise, subsidence, and reduced Mississippi River sediment.