It's a hot morning in May, Jazz Fest is in full swing nearby and I meet ecologist Dave Baker under the shade of an 800 year old live oak tree to find out more about South Louisiana's complex physiology. A tense dance between nature's desires and man's will - a century's old drive by European colonisers to bend the land into submission, to show it who's boss . This fuller conversation with Dave goes further into why the Mississippi has been 'walled off', the colonial roots of this control, the decision by New Orleans to sell itself for tourism rather than taking care of the home fires, how diversions are the only solution and his anguish at seeing no choice now but to leave for somewhere safer.