A year has passed since the start of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster—the largest accidental oil spill in history. Over a span of five months, a total of more than 170 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico and swept toward the fragile ecosystem of the Mississippi River Delta and adjacent Gulf Coast.

It's still too early to measure the full extent of the oil's impacts on Gulf Coast waters, beaches, and saltmarshes, to the region's economy, or to its millions of birds. In this video, Cornell Lab director John Fitzpatrick summarizes what we do know, and reflects on our obligation to restore this national treasure's health. Below the video, you'll find other resources about the spill, its aftermath, and the way forward.

"We do have options to actually improve the landscapes, not just make them worse," Fitzpatrick says in the video. He's referring to a major effort to restore the vital but disappearing wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta.