By: Phyllis Griffard
Blair Begnaud, Assistant Director of Sustainability at
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Blair Begnaud is an advocate for native plants on the campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and out in the community with the Bayou Vermilion Preservation Association (BVPA).
Blair is the Assistant Director of Sustainability at the UL Lafayette Office of Sustainability. Additionally, she is the Chair of the UL Lafayette Bee Campus USA committee and worked to achieve the Bee Campus USA Affiliation for the university. Bee Campus USA strives to conserve native pollinators by increasing the abundance of native plants, providing nest sites, and reducing the use of pesticides. On campus, Blair has helped plan, install, and maintain various pollinator habitats, rain gardens, urban Cajun Prairies, and bioswales with native plants that were grown at the UL Lafayette Ecology Center. With the Bayou Vermilion Preservation Association, Blair has enjoyed planting natives at parks along the Vermilion and attending educational events about natives and their many benefits.
Blair is looking forward to installing green infrastructure and planting a small urban Cajun Prairie full of native plants in the front yard of her new home. Her goal in the not-too-distant-future is to earn Louisiana Certified Habitat and Certified Wildlife Habitat designations at her home to provide habitat for native species, pollinating insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and more.
Thank you, Blair for your dedication and advocacy! Continue the good work.
From the September 2022 ANPP Newsletter