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Park Service orders changes to staff ratings, a move experts call illegal

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Friday, December 12, 2025

A top National Park Service official has instructed park superintendents to limit the number of staff who get top marks in performance reviews, according to three people familiar with the matter, a move that experts say violates federal code and could make it easier to lay off staff.Parks leadership generally evaluate individual employees annually on a five-point scale, with a three rating given to those who are successful in achieving their goals, with those exceeding expectations receiving a four and outstanding employees earning a five.Frank Lands, the deputy director of operations for the National Park System, told dozens of park superintendents on a conference call Thursday that “the preponderance of ratings should be 3s,” according to the people familiar, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the internal call.Lands said that roughly one to five percent of people should receive an outstanding rating and confirmed several times that about 80 percent should receive 3s, the people familiar said.Follow Climate & environmentThe Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday that “there is no percentage cap” on certain performance ratings.“We are working to normalize ratings across the agency,” the statement said. “The goal of this effort is to ensure fair, consistent performance evaluations across all of our parks and programs.”Though many employers in corporate American often instruct managers to classify a majority of employee reviews in the middle tier, the Parks Service has commonly given higher ratings to a greater proportion of employees.Performance ratings are also taken into account when determining which employees are laid off first if the agency were to go ahead with “reduction in force” layoffs, as many other departments have done this year.The order appears to violate the Code of Federal Regulations, said Tim Whitehouse, a lawyer and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The code states that the government cannot require a “forced distribution” of ratings for federal employees.“Employees are supposed to be evaluated based upon their performance, not upon a predetermined rating that doesn’t reflect how they actually performed,” he said.The Trump administration has reduced the number of parks staff this year by about 4,000 people, or roughly a quarter, according to an analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Parks advocates say the administration is deliberately seeking to demoralize staff and failing to recognize the additional work they now have to do, given the exodus of employees through voluntary resignations and early retirements.Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) said the move would artificially depress employee ratings:“You can’t square that with the legal requirements of the current regulations about how performance reviews are supposed to work.”Some details of the directive were first reported by E&E News.Park superintendents on the conference call objected to the order. Some questioned the fairness to employees whose work merited a better rating at a time when many staff are working harder to make up for the thousands of vacancies.“I need leaders who lead in adversity. And if you can’t do that, just let me know. I’ll do my best to find somebody that can,” Lands said in response, the people familiar with the call said.One superintendent who was on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said in an interview that Lands’ statement “was meant to be a threat.”The superintendent said they were faced with disobeying the order and potentially being fired or illegally changing employees’ evaluations.“If we change these ratings to meet the quota and violated federal law, are we subject to removal because we violated federal law and the oath we took to protect the Constitution?” the superintendent said.Myron Ebell, a board member of the American Lands Council, an advocacy group supporting the transfer of federal lands to states and counties, defended the administration’s move.“It’s exactly the same thing as grade inflation at universities. Think about it. Not everybody can be smarter than average. If everyone is doing great, that’s average,” he said.Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement that the policy could make it easier to lay off staff, after the administration already decimated the ranks of the parks service.“After the National Park Service was decimated by mass firings and pressured staff buyouts, park rangers have been working the equivalent of second, third, or even fourth jobs protecting parks,” Pierno said.“Guidance like this could very well be setting up their staff to be cannon fodder during the next round of mass firings. This would be an unconscionable move,” she added.

Lower performance ratings could be used as a factor in layoff decisions and will demoralize staff, advocates say.

Parks leadership generally evaluate individual employees annually on a five-point scale, with a three rating given to those who are successful in achieving their goals, with those exceeding expectations receiving a four and outstanding employees earning a five.

Frank Lands, the deputy director of operations for the National Park System, told dozens of park superintendents on a conference call Thursday that “the preponderance of ratings should be 3s,” according to the people familiar, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the internal call.

Lands said that roughly one to five percent of people should receive an outstanding rating and confirmed several times that about 80 percent should receive 3s, the people familiar said.

Follow Climate & environment

The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday that “there is no percentage cap” on certain performance ratings.

“We are working to normalize ratings across the agency,” the statement said. “The goal of this effort is to ensure fair, consistent performance evaluations across all of our parks and programs.”

Though many employers in corporate American often instruct managers to classify a majority of employee reviews in the middle tier, the Parks Service has commonly given higher ratings to a greater proportion of employees.

Performance ratings are also taken into account when determining which employees are laid off first if the agency were to go ahead with “reduction in force” layoffs, as many other departments have done this year.

The order appears to violate the Code of Federal Regulations, said Tim Whitehouse, a lawyer and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The code states that the government cannot require a “forced distribution” of ratings for federal employees.

“Employees are supposed to be evaluated based upon their performance, not upon a predetermined rating that doesn’t reflect how they actually performed,” he said.

The Trump administration has reduced the number of parks staff this year by about 4,000 people, or roughly a quarter, according to an analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Parks advocates say the administration is deliberately seeking to demoralize staff and failing to recognize the additional work they now have to do, given the exodus of employees through voluntary resignations and early retirements.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) said the move would artificially depress employee ratings:

“You can’t square that with the legal requirements of the current regulations about how performance reviews are supposed to work.”

Some details of the directive were first reported by E&E News.

Park superintendents on the conference call objected to the order. Some questioned the fairness to employees whose work merited a better rating at a time when many staff are working harder to make up for the thousands of vacancies.

“I need leaders who lead in adversity. And if you can’t do that, just let me know. I’ll do my best to find somebody that can,” Lands said in response, the people familiar with the call said.

One superintendent who was on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said in an interview that Lands’ statement “was meant to be a threat.”

The superintendent said they were faced with disobeying the order and potentially being fired or illegally changing employees’ evaluations.

“If we change these ratings to meet the quota and violated federal law, are we subject to removal because we violated federal law and the oath we took to protect the Constitution?” the superintendent said.

Myron Ebell, a board member of the American Lands Council, an advocacy group supporting the transfer of federal lands to states and counties, defended the administration’s move.

“It’s exactly the same thing as grade inflation at universities. Think about it. Not everybody can be smarter than average. If everyone is doing great, that’s average,” he said.

Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement that the policy could make it easier to lay off staff, after the administration already decimated the ranks of the parks service.

“After the National Park Service was decimated by mass firings and pressured staff buyouts, park rangers have been working the equivalent of second, third, or even fourth jobs protecting parks,” Pierno said.

“Guidance like this could very well be setting up their staff to be cannon fodder during the next round of mass firings. This would be an unconscionable move,” she added.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

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Coalmine expansions would breach climate targets, NSW government warned in ‘game-changer’ report

Environmental advocates welcome Net Zero Commission’s report which found the fossil fuel was ‘not consistent’ with emissions reductions commitments Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

The New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.The commission’s Coal Mining Emissions Spotlight Report said the government should consider the climate impact – including from the “scope 3” emissions released into the atmosphere when most of the state’s coal is exported and burned overseas – in all coalmine planning decisions.Environmental lawyer Elaine Johnson said the report was a “game-changer” as it argued coalmining was the state’s biggest contribution to the climate crisis and that new coal proposals were inconsistent with the legislated targets.She said it also found demand for coal was declining – consistent with recent analyses by federal Treasury and the advisory firm Climate Resource – and the state government must support affected communities to transition to new industries.“What all this means is that it is no longer lawful to keep approving more coalmine expansions in NSW,” Johnson wrote on social media site LinkedIn. “Let’s hope the Department of Planning takes careful note when it’s looking at the next coalmine expansion proposal.”The Lock the Gate Alliance, a community organisation that campaigns against fossil fuel developments, said the report showed changes were required to the state’s planning framework to make authorities assess emissions and climate damage when considering mine applications.It said this should apply to 18 mine expansions that have been proposed but not yet approved, including two “mega-coalmine expansions” at the Hunter Valley Operations and Maules Creek mines. Eight coalmine expansions have been approved since the Minns Labor government was elected in 2023.Lock the Gate’s Nic Clyde said NSW already had 37 coalmines and “we can’t keep expanding them indefinitely”. He called for an immediate moratorium on approving coal expansions until the commission’s findings had been implemented.“This week, multiple NSW communities have been battling dangerous bushfires, which are becoming increasingly severe due to climate change fuelled by coalmining and burning. Our safety and our survival depends on how the NSW government responds to this report,” he said.Net zero emissions is a target that has been adopted by governments, companies and other organisations to eliminate their contribution to the climate crisis. It is sometimes called “carbon neutrality”.The climate crisis is caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, where they trap heat. They have already caused a significant increase in average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels recorded since the mid-20th century. Countries and others that set net zero emissions targets are pledging to stop their role in worsening this by cutting their climate pollution and balancing out whatever emissions remain by sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere.This could happen through nature projects – tree planting, for example – or using carbon dioxide removal technology.CO2 removal from the atmosphere is the “net” part in net zero. Scientists say some emissions will be hard to stop and will need to be offset. But they also say net zero targets will be effective only if carbon removal is limited to offset “hard to abate” emissions. Fossil use will still need to be dramatically reduced.After signing the 2015 Paris agreement, the global community asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess what would be necessary to give the world a chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C.The IPCC found it would require deep cuts in global CO2 emissions: to about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030, and to net zero by about 2050.The Climate Action Tracker has found more than 145 countries have set or are considering setting net zero emissions targets. Photograph: Ashley Cooper pics/www.alamy.comThe alliance’s national coordinator, Carmel Flint, added: “It’s not just history that will judge the government harshly if they continue approving such projects following this report. Our courts are likely to as well.”The NSW Minerals Council criticised the commission’s report. Its chief executive, Stephen Galilee, said it was a “flawed and superficial analysis” that put thousands of coalmining jobs at risk. He said some coalmines would close in the years ahead but was “no reason” not to approve outstanding applications to extend the operating life of about 10 mines.Galilee said emissions from coal in NSW were falling faster than the average rate of emission reduction across the state and were “almost fully covered” by the federal government’s safeguard mechanism policy, which required mine owners to either make annual direct emissions cuts or buy offsets.He said the NSW government should “reflect on why it provides nearly $7m annually” for the commission to “campaign against thousands of NSW mining jobs”.But the state’s main environment organisation, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the commission report showed coalmining was “incompatible with a safe climate future”.“The Net Zero Commission has shone a spotlight. Now the free ride for coalmine pollution has to end,” the council’s chief executive, Jacqui Mumford, said.The state climate change and energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the commission was established to monitor, report and provide independent advice on how the state was meeting its legislated emissions targets, and the government would consider its advice “along with advice from other groups and agencies”.

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Nope, Billionaire Tom Steyer Is Not a Bellwether of Climate Politics

What should we make of billionaire Tom Steyer’s reinvention as a populist candidate for California governor, four years after garnering only 0.72 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, despite obscene spending from his personal fortune? Is it evidence that he’s a hard man to discourage? (In that race, he dropped almost $24 million on South Carolina alone.) Is it evidence that billionaires get to do a lot of things the rest of us don’t? Or is it evidence that talking about climate change is for losers and Democrats need to abandon it?Politico seems to think it’s the third one: Steyer running a populist gubernatorial campaign means voters don’t care about global warming.“The billionaire environmental activist who built his political profile on climate change—and who wrote in his book last year that ‘climate is what matters most right now, and nothing else comes close’—didn’t mention the issue once in the video launching his campaign for California governor,” reporter Noah Baustin wrote recently. “That was no oversight.” Instead, “it reflects a political reality confronting Democrats ahead of the midterms, where onetime climate evangelists are running into an electorate more worried about the climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance than a warming atmosphere.”It’s hard to know how to parse a sentence like this. The “climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance” is, indisputably, a climate issue. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, and home insurance is spiking because increasingly frequent and increasingly severe weather events—driven by climate change—are making large swaths of the country expensive or impossible to insure. The fact that voters are struggling to pay for utilities and insurance, therefore, is not evidence that they don’t care about climate change. Instead, it’s evidence that climate change is a kitchen table issue, and politicians are, disadvantageously, failing to embrace the obviously populist message that accompanies robust climate policy. This is a problem with Democratic messaging, not a problem with climate as a topic.The piece goes on: “Climate concern has fallen in the state over time. In 2018, when Gov. Gavin Newsom was running for office, polling found that 57 percent of likely California voters considered climate change a very serious threat to the economy and quality of life for the state’s future. Now, that figure is 50 percent.”This may sound persuasive to you. But in fact, it’s a highly selective reading of the PPIC survey data linked above. What the poll actually found is that the proportion of Californians calling climate change a “very serious” threat peaked at 57 percent in 2019, fell slightly in subsequent years, then fell precipitously by 11 points between July 2022 and July 2023, before rising similarly precipitously from July 2024 to July 2025. Why did it fall so quickly from 2022 to 2023? Sure, maybe people stopped caring about climate change. Or maybe instead, the month after the 2022 poll, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate policy in U.S. history, and people stopped being quite so worried. Why did concern then rise rapidly between July 2024 and July 2025? Well, between those two dates, Trump won the presidential election and proceeded, along with Republicans in Congress, to dismantle anything remotely resembling climate policy. The Inflation Reduction Act fell apart. I’m not saying this is the only way to read this data. But consider this: The percentage of respondents saying they were somewhat or very worried about members of their household being affected by natural disasters actually went up over the same period. The percentage saying air pollution was “a more serious health threat in lower-income areas” nearby went up. Those saying flooding, heat waves, and wildfires should be considered “a great deal” when siting new affordable housing rose a striking 12 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, and those “very concerned” about rising insurance costs “due to climate risks” rose 14 percentage points.This is not a portrait of an electorate that doesn’t care about climate change. It’s a portrait of an electorate that may actually be very ready to hear a politician convincingly embrace climate populism—championing affordability and better material conditions for working people, in part by protecting them from the predatory industries driving a cost-of-living crisis while poisoning people.This is part of a broader problem. Currently, there’s a big push from centrist Democratic institutions to argue that the party should abandon climate issues in order to win elections. The evidence for this is mixed, at best. As TNR’s Liza Featherstone recently pointed out, Democrats’ striking victories last month showed that candidates fusing climate policy with an energy affordability message did very well. Aaron Regunberg went into further detail on why talking about climate change is a smart strategy: “Right now,” he wrote, “neither party has a significant trust advantage on ‘electric utility bills’ (D+1) or ‘the cost of living’ (R+1). But Democrats do have major trust advantages on ‘climate change’ (D+14) and ‘renewable energy development’ (D+6). By articulating how their climate and clean energy agenda can address these bread-and-butter concerns, Democrats can leverage their advantage on climate to win voters’ trust on what will likely be the most significant issues in 2026 and 2028.”One of the troubles with climate change in political discourse is that some people’s understanding of environmental politics begins and ends with the spotted owl logging battles in the 1990s. This is the sort of attitude that drives the assumption that affordability policy and climate policy are not only distinct but actually opposed. But that’s wildly disconnected from present reality. Maybe Tom Steyer isn’t the guy to illustrate that! But his political fortunes, either way, don’t say much at all about climate messaging more broadly.Stat of the Week3x as many infant deathsA new study finds that babies of mothers “whose drinking water wells were downstream of PFAS releases” died at almost three times the rate in their first year of life as babies of mothers who did not live downstream of PFAS contamination. Read The Washington Post’s report on the study here.What I’m ReadingMore than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacentersAn open letter calls on Congress to pause all approvals of new data centers until regulation catches up, due to problems such as data centers’ voracious energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. From The Guardian’s report:The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’ need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce.These seemingly parochial concerns have now multiplied to become a potent political force, helping propel Democrats to a series of emphatic recent electoral successes in governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey as well as a stunning upset win in a special public service commission poll in Georgia, with candidates campaigning on lowering power bill costs and curbing datacenters.Read Oliver Milman’s full report at The Guardian.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

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Takeaways From AP’s Report on Potential Impacts of Alaska’s Proposed Ambler Access Road

A proposed mining road in Northwest Alaska has sparked debate amid climate change impacts

AMBLER, Alaska (AP) — In Northwest Alaska, a proposed mining road has become a flashpoint in a region already stressed by climate change. The 211-mile (340-kilometer) Ambler Access Road would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and cross 11 major rivers and thousands of streams relied on for salmon and caribou. The Trump administration approved the project this fall, setting off concerns over how the Inupiaq subsistence way of life can survive amid rapid environmental change. Many fear the road could push the ecosystem past a breaking point yet also recognize the need for jobs. A strategically important mineral deposit The Ambler Mining District holds one of the largest undeveloped sources of copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold in North America. Demand for minerals used in renewable energy is expected to grow, though most copper mined in the U.S. currently goes to construction — not green technologies. Critics say the road raises broader questions about who gets to decide the terms of mineral extraction on Indigenous lands. Climate change has already devastated subsistence resources Northwest Alaska is warming about four times faster than the global average — a shift that has already upended daily life. The Western Arctic Caribou Herd, once nearly half a million strong, has fallen 66% in two decades to around 164,000 animals. Warmer temperatures delay cold and snow, disrupting migration routes and keeping caribou high in the Brooks Range where hunters can’t easily reach them.Salmon runs have suffered repeated collapses as record rainfall, warmer rivers and thawing permafrost transform once-clear streams. In some areas, permafrost thaw has released metals into waterways, adding to the stress on already fragile fish populations.“Elders who’ve lived here their entire lives have never seen environmental conditions like this,” one local environmental official said. The road threatens what remains The Ambler road would cross a vast, largely undisturbed region to reach major deposits of copper, zinc and other minerals. Building it would require nearly 50 bridges, thousands of culverts and more than 100 truck trips a day during peak operations. Federal biologists warn naturally occurring asbestos could be kicked up by passing trucks and settle onto waterways and vegetation that caribou rely on. The Bureau of Land Management designated some 1.2 million acres of nearby salmon spawning and caribou calving habitat as “critical environmental concern.”Mining would draw large volumes of water from lakes and rivers, disturb permafrost and rely on a tailings facility to hold toxic slurry. With record rainfall becoming more common, downstream communities fear contamination of drinking water and traditional foods.Locals also worry the road could eventually open to the public, inviting outside hunters into an already stressed ecosystem. Many point to Alaska’s Dalton Highway, which opened to public use despite earlier promises it would remain private.Ambler Metals, the company behind the mining project, says it uses proven controls for work in permafrost and will treat all water the mine has contact with to strict standards. The company says it tracks precipitation to size facilities for heavier rainfall. A potential economic lifeline For some, the mine represents opportunity in a region where gasoline can cost nearly $18 a gallon and basic travel for hunting has become prohibitively expensive. Supporters argue mining jobs could help people stay in their villages, which face some of the highest living costs in the country.Ambler mayor Conrad Douglas summed up the tension: “I don’t really know how much the state of Alaska is willing to jeopardize our way of life, but the people do need jobs.”The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

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New York’s Environmental Agenda Stalls Under Kathy Hochul

Faced with an affordability crisis and rising energy demands, Gov. Kathy Hochul has slowed progress on New York’s efforts to fight climate change.

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Crisis

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How a species of bamboo could help protect the South from future floods

In the face of mounting climate disasters, tribes, scientists, and Southern communities are rallying around a nearly forgotten native plant.

In early 2024, Michael Fedoroff trekked out to Tuckabum Creek in York County, Alabama. The environmental anthropologist was there to help plant 300 stalks of rivercane, a bamboo plant native to North America, on an eroded, degraded strip of wetland: a “gnarly” and “wicked” area, according to Fedoroff. If successful, this planting would be the largest cane restoration project in Alabama history. He and his team got the stalks into the ground, buttressed them with hay, left, and hoped for the best. A few days later, rains swept through the area and the river rose by 9 feet. “We were terrified,” said Fedoroff. He and his team raced back to the site, expecting to find bare dirt. Instead, they found that the rivercane had survived — and so, crucially, had the stream bank. Rivercane used to line the streams, rivers, and bogs of the Southeast from the Blue Ridge Mountains down to the Mississippi Delta. Thick yellow stalks and feathery leaves reached as high as 20 feet into the sky, so dense that riders on horseback would travel around rather than venturing through. In the ground underneath cane stands, rhizomes — gnarled stems just below the soil surface — extended out to cover acres. When Europeans settled the land that would become North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama, they ripped up trees and vegetation to make way for agriculture and development. Pigs ate rivercane rhizomes and cows munched on developing shoots. Now, thanks to this dramatic upheaval in the landscape, more than 98 percent of rivercane is gone. Of those plentiful dense stands, called canebrakes, only about 12 are left in the whole nation, according to Fedoroff. But as the Tuckabum Creek project demonstrated, rivercane was an essential bulwark against the ravages of floods. That vast network of tough underground stems kept soil and stream banks in place more effectively than other vegetation, even when rivers ran high. And as the South faces mounting climate-fueled disasters, like Hurricane Helene last year, a small and dedicated network of scientists, volunteers, Native stakeholders, and landowners is working to bring this plant back. During Helene, the few waterways that were lined by rivercane fared much better than those that weren’t, said Adam Griffith, a rivercane expert at an NC Cooperative Extension outpost in Cherokee. “I saw the devastation of the rivers,” said Griffith. He had considered stepping back from his involvement in rivercane restoration, but recommitted himself after the hurricane. “If the native vegetation had been there, the stream bank would have been in much better shape,” he said. Rivercane growing along the Cane River in Yancey County, North Carolina, created an “island” where it held the stream bank in place during Hurricane Helene. These photos show the river before and after the storm. Adam Griffith These enthusiasts are ushering in a “cane renaissance,” according to Fedoroff, who directs the University of Alabama program that hosts the Rivercane Restoration Alliance, or RRA, a network of pro-rivercane groups. The RRA and its allies are replanting rivercane where it once flourished, maintaining existing canebrakes and stands, and educating landowners and the general public on cane’s benefits. In addition to those rhizomes saving waterways from devastating erosion, rivercane also provides crucial habitat to native species, such as cane-feeding moths, and filters nitrate and other pollutants from water. “When people grow to accept cane into their hearts, beautiful things happen,” said Fedoroff, whose team now has a $3.8 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to work on rivercane projects in 12 states throughout the Southeast. Large restoration projects like this often involve collaboration with many major stakeholders: The Tuckabum Creek project, for example, looped in the RRA, the lumber and land management company Westervelt, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Rivercane enthusiasts stressed that consulting with and including tribes is essential in returning this plant to the landscape. Not only does rivercane bring ecological benefits, it also holds a cultural role for tribes — one that’s been lost as the plant declined. Historically, Native peoples in the Southeast used rivercane to make things like baskets, blow guns, and arrows, but nowadays, many artisans have turned to synthetic materials for these crafts, said Ryan Spring, a historian and a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. When Spring started his job at the tribe 14 years ago, no one knew much about rivercane ecology, he said. Now, Spring is actively involved in recentering rivercane in the cultural and ecological landscape. “We’re building up community, taking them out, teaching them ecology,” Spring said. “A lot are basket makers, and now they’re using rivercane to make baskets for the first time.” In mature patches of cane, the high density of roots and rhizomes helps keep soils in place during floods. EBCI Cooperative Extension There are challenges to the dream of returning rivercane to its former prolific glory in the Southeast. One is education: For example, rivercane is often confused for invasive Chinese bamboo, which means that landowners and managers generally don’t think twice before removing it. Another barrier to restoration efforts is the cost and availability of rivercane plants. They’re not easy to find in nurseries, and can run between $50 and $60 per plant or more, according to Laura Young of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. But Young has found a way around this problem. She does habitat and riverbank restoration in southeastern Virginia, and six years ago, she wanted to plant a canebrake along a river near the tiny town of Jonesville. The cost was prohibitive, and so Young pioneered a method now known colloquially as the “cane train.” She gathered pieces of cane rhizome, planted them in soil-filled sandwich bags, then started a canebrake with the propagated cuttings — all for $6. Fedoroff pointed out that the cane train method has one major drawback: Different varieties of rivercane are better suited for, say, wet spots or sunny spots, so transplanting cuttings that thrived in one area could result in a bunch of dead plants in another. At his lab, researchers are working on sequencing rivercane genomes so they can compare different plants’ traits and choose the best varieties for different locations. But, Young added, while the propagation method is imperfect, it’s cheap, easy, and better than nothing. Out of the 200 plants in her initial project, 60 took off. “Rivercane is kind of like investing,” she said. “It’s not get-rich-quick. You just need to invest time and money every year, and then it exponentially pays off.” The cane train also offers a low-investment way for volunteers and private landowners to get involved in stabilizing stream banks. Yancey County, North Carolina, is home to numerous streams and creeks that suffered major erosion damage during Hurricane Helene. This spring, the county government, in partnership with several state and local groups, led a cadre of volunteers in a rivercane restoration project. They harvested thousands of rhizomes, contacted landowners along the county’s devastated waterways, and planted almost 700 shoots, a process they’ll repeat in 2026. “The county really showed up,” said Keira Albert, a restoration coordinator at The Beacon Network, a disaster recovery organization that helped lead the project. That’s part of the power of a solution like planting rivercane: It’s an actionable, easy way for ordinary landowners and volunteers to heal the landscape around them. “There’s a lot of doom and gloom when we think about climate change,” Fedoroff said. “We become paralyzed. But we’re trying to take a different approach. We can’t get back to that pristine past state, but we can envision a future ecology that’s better.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How a species of bamboo could help protect the South from future floods on Dec 11, 2025.

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Climate

Total Disaster

Armed with realistic bird puppets, trickster environmental activists pretend to be oil company Total—staging a satirical press conference to introduce "RéHabitat," a program to rescue animals from the East African Oil Pipeline by relocating them to “more sustainable” habitats. Using humor and mischief, they expose a deadly ecological disaster in a zany effort to help #StopEACOP.

Activism

Energy

Animals

Heimat - Requiem For The World As We Know It

Four theater-makers from Belgium travel to the melting glaciers on Greenland. Their goal: to play a new composed requiem and say goodbye to the world as we know it.

Music

Culture

Climate

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Heimat - Requiem For The World As We Know It

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sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

Park Service orders changes to staff ratings, a move experts call illegal

Related News

Coalmine expansions would breach climate targets, NSW government warned in ‘game-changer’ report

Nope, Billionaire Tom Steyer Is Not a Bellwether of Climate Politics

Takeaways From AP’s Report on Potential Impacts of Alaska’s Proposed Ambler Access Road

New York’s Environmental Agenda Stalls Under Kathy Hochul

How a species of bamboo could help protect the South from future floods

Suggested Viewing

Chicken Soup for the Soil

The Wisdom To Survive: Climate Change, Capitalism & Community

Can't Stop Change: Queer Climate Stories from the Florida Frontlines

Total Disaster

Heimat - Requiem For The World As We Know It

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future