Wild Rice Restoration Under Climate Pressure

Wild rice, or manoomin, is declining across parts of the upper Midwest under pressure from climate change, altered water levels, pollution, dams, and habitat disturbance.

Tribes, universities, and nonprofits are using monitoring, reseeding, and habitat management to protect surviving stands and restore growing areas. The issue matters because wild rice is both an ecologically important wetland species and a foundation of Indigenous cultural and food sovereignty.