Plaquemine Point is a peninsula of land opposite the city of Plaquemine, approximately 1 mile wide and ten miles in its curve of the Mississippi River. It is the only privately-owned old-growth forest in Louisiana included in the Old-Growth Forest Network, a national non-profit organization founded in 2011 to protect native, mature forests. This peninsula has been inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of years, including the Chitimacha, Houma and Bayou Goula people. Its archaeological record reaches back more than 300 years, due to its location just south of Bayou Manchac, a natural water route to Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans. Today, there are three routes of a new Mississippi River bridge proposed by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD). If the northernmost route is selected, this development would cut through the heart of Plaquemine Point and cause irreparable damage to the cultural landscape, archaeological record and ecosystem.