South Atlantic Third Thursday Web Forum

“River cane ecosystem conservation and connection to Keetoowah traditional practices” with Roger Cain, Tribal Ethnobotanist with the Office of Environmental Services and Historic Preservation of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee in Oklahoma

River cane (Arundinaria gigantea) is one of three bamboos indigenous to North America; the other two, hill cane (Arundinaria appalachiana) and switch cane (Arundinaria tecta) also co-occur in the Southeast. Indigenous bamboo forests historically occupied important positions in the landscape of the southeastern United States, creating large river cane ecosystems also known as canebrakes. These extensive habitats sustained indigenous peoples by providing a vital food source, material culture items, and shelter for the indigenous people who were sustained by these ecosystems. Unfortunately, these ecosystems were found to be a superb food source for livestock and rich soil for agricultural expansion throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, setting up the destruction and demise of once expansive bamboo forests that once populated the southeastern woodland landscape. Today, river cane ecosystems cover less than 2% of the landscape area it once covered before contact.

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee in Oklahoma will be co-stewarding river cane ecosystems on tribal, state, and federal lands through the NFWF America the Beautiful Challenge by collaboratively designing and implementing projects to increase river cane habitat connectivity through ground truthing, mapping and managing endangered canebrake ecosystems. Indigenous UKB work crews will distribute and apply Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) AND Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) knowledge/training to partnering organizations, benefiting at-risk fish, wildlife, and plant species.

Join Microsoft Teams meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MjliZmYyN2EtOWY1Yi00N2FjLTkyOTYtZWRiNTJkNjAyNGIy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%220693b5ba-4b18-4d7b-9341-f32f400a5494%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22765228b1-d0d0-4438-812e-51cbb57819f1%22%7d