Best Management Practices Recognized

Louisiana Sea Grant (LSG) was recognized for four Best Management Practices (BMPs) by the National Sea Grant College Program. The BMPs were identified during LSG’s federal program review conducted in early 2025 for fiscal years 2018-2023. The National Sea Grant BMPs report was released in June.

BMPs Louisiana Sea Grant was recognized for include:

• The Sea Grant Scholars program that consists of emeritus staff members who contribute to LSG efforts at an extremely high level. The current roster of six Sea Grant Scholars have expertise in cultural geography, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), economics, oyster biology, alligator management and aquaculture, extension and education, as well as traditional Louisiana culture.

“This program provides exceptional benefits and enables the preservation and application of valuable institutional knowledge,” the report states.

• Research opportunities for undergraduate students through the Undergraduate Opportunities Program (UROP), which provides critical training for students bound for graduate studies as well as those entering the workforce immediately after earning their undergraduate degrees.

UROP students – who can be from any Louisiana college or university – gain first-hand knowledge regarding the entire research process from design, implementation, analysis to conclusion. The objective is for students to present their research findings at relevant conferences and publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The program was established by LSG in 1992 and funds as many as eight undergraduate research projects annually.

• The four-person Sea Grant Law & Policy Program (SGLPP), which has been a component of LSG since 1970. The mission of the SGLPP is to provide timely and relevant legal information and services to the many users of Louisiana’s coastal land and waters, including state and local governments, coastal businesses and the public. That information covers a wide range of topics affecting the use, conservation and management of the state’s ocean and coastal environment and resources. The program also employs up to six law student interns, who are given the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with coastal and natural resource issues.

“Multiple times during the review, the LSG director (Julie Lively) remarked that she didn’t know how other programs operate without readily available legal capacity,” the report states. “So trusted is the unit as a provider of neutral, non-partisan information that even the state legislature has called upon it for its services.”

• Providing multilingual programming for Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking commercial fishers in the shrimp and shellfish industries. Along with having Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking extension personnel who work with the fishing industry, LSG also provides multilingual factsheets and videos to coastal residents on topics such as federal disaster aid and general disaster preparedness.

Since its establishment in 1968, Louisiana Sea Grant (www.laseagrant.org) has worked to promote stewardship of the state’s coastal resources through a combination of research, education and outreach programs critical to the cultural, economic and environmental health of Louisiana’s coastal zone. Louisiana Sea Grant, based at LSU, is part of the National Sea Grant College Program, a network of 34 university-based programs in each of the U.S. coastal and Great Lakes states and Puerto Rico.

Sea Grant is a federal-university partnership program that brings science together with communities for solutions that work.