In early 2024, environmental anthropologist Michael Fedoroff led the planting of 300 rivercane stalks along Tuckabum Creek in York County, Alabama, marking the state's largest such project. Despite heavy rains that raised the river by 9 feet, the native bamboo survived and stabilized the eroding stream bank. As climate-driven floods intensify in the Southeast, scientists, tribes, and communities are reviving this forgotten plant to safeguard landscapes.
Rivercane, a native bamboo once abundant across the Southeast from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Mississippi Delta, historically formed dense stands up to 20 feet tall, with rhizomes covering acres to anchor soil. European settlement disrupted this ecosystem through agriculture, development, and livestock grazing, reducing rivercane by over 98 percent; only about 12 canebrakes remain nationwide.
The Tuckabum Creek initiative, involving the Rivercane Restoration Alliance (RRA), Westervelt, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, demonstrated rivercane's flood resilience. Fedoroff, who directs the University of Alabama's RRA program, recalled the terror of the post-planting deluge but celebrated the outcome: "We were terrified... Instead, they found that the rivercane had survived — and so, crucially, had the stream bank."
Hurricane Helene in 2024 highlighted the plant's value, as waterways lined with rivercane suffered less erosion. Adam Griffith, a rivercane expert with NC Cooperative Extension in Cherokee, observed: "If the native vegetation had been there, the stream bank would have been in much better shape." Beyond erosion control, rivercane provides habitat for species like cane-feeding moths and filters pollutants such as nitrates.
Restoration efforts, backed by a $3.8 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant for 12 states, emphasize tribal collaboration. Ryan Spring of the Choctaw Nation noted the plant's cultural significance for crafts like baskets, now reintroduced: "We’re building up community, taking them out, teaching them ecology."
Challenges include confusion with invasive bamboo and high costs—$50 to $60 per plant. Laura Young's "cane train" method propagates rhizomes cheaply for $6, achieving 30 percent success in her Virginia project. In Yancey County, North Carolina, post-Helene volunteers planted nearly 700 shoots. Fedoroff envisions a "cane renaissance" as an actionable response to climate paralysis: "We can’t get back to that pristine past state, but we can envision a future ecology that’s better."