TERREBONNE PARISH, Louisiana — Streams of oil slid into the bayous of southeastern Louisiana after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, damaging the marsh grasses, the wildlife and the livelihood of the 17,000-member Houma tribe.

The pollution also weakened the marshes, accelerating the rapid disappearance of coastal land that is taking the Houma Indians’ culture with it.

Now money that BP, the oil and gas company responsible for the spill, was forced to pay is beginning to flow to some groups and businesses to repair the environmental damage and protect the coast. But the Houma Indians say they haven't been compensated for the damage to the land they live on and fear they won't see funding for the protection and restoration projects they consider important.

While the marshes have been eroding for years, due to levee building, oil pipelines and climate change, the Houma say the BP spill significantly worsened the problem.

The United Houma Nation is officially recognized by the state of Louisiana but not by the federal government, making it hard for the Houma to negotiate compensation.

“The United Houma Nation reached out to BP for assistance,” said Principal Chief Thomas Dardar Jr. in a congressional hearing in 2012. But because the Houma aren’t a federally acknowledged tribe, BP said it wasn’t mandated to help, he said. A BP representative declined to comment.

And yet the Houma and several other indigenous groups in the area — including the Grand Bayou Village, Grand Caillou/Dulac, Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe-au-Chien tribes — are faced with a startling loss.

Dardar’s administrative assistant, Bette Billiot, drove her black minivan down a narrow road alongside Pointe-aux-Chenes Bayou in early December, the white feathers of a dreamcatcher swaying from her rearview mirror.

The bayou is in Terrebonne Parish, one of six coastal parishes where the Houma and other Native peoples are concentrated.

She pointed to the right. “That’s Lora Ann Chaisson’s property,” she said. Chaisson, the vice principal chief of the Houma, used to own 15 acres, but only 12 acres of her land still exist. “She has three acres of water now,” Billiot said.

Billiot turned the van onto a narrow road leading to Isle de Jean Charles, a stretch of land that was inspiration for the 2012 film “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

For years, it was home to a community of Native Americans. Once, 125 or so families lived there, she said. Now it’s only about 25 families. The island was 5 miles wide and 11 miles long in the 1950s, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Now it’s barely a quarter of a mile wide and 2 miles long.

This area of southeastern Louisiana is simply melting away — an average of 16.57 square miles a year for the past 25 years, according to the Geological Survey.

It’s like losing the area of a football field every hour, said David Gauthe, a member of Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing, a group of religious organizations concerned about environmental issues and poverty.

And it’s pushing Houma families out of the bayou.