The National Audubon Society, with the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation, has issued a report that outlines the necessary steps to restore and rebuild an ecosystem that even before the recent catastrophic oil spill, has lost more than 2,300 square miles of wetlands—an area larger than the state of Delaware—since the 1930s. Here's the press release, and here's the plan itself.

From the report:

"The loss of coastal wetlands to oil contamination may speed up today's alarming land loss, leaving an already weakened ecosystem even more vulnerable to storms and other man-made assaults ... 

"Without restoration, every disaster will sow the seeds of a more devastating disaster down the line, and the region will continue on a path to eventual destruction. These actions will make the entire area more resilient, protecting the people who live there, the industries critical to our national economy, and the wildlife that call the area home."