permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

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Headline:  From a bamboo crisis - innovation
Byline:  Matthew Power Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 09/09/2004

(NEW DELHI)Seen from the air, the lush bamboo-covered hills of Mizoram, in
northeastern India, give the impression of an undulating green ocean.
But the beauty of the landscape obscures a looming disaster. In the
next several years, in a natural phenomenon known locally as mautham,
millions of acres of bamboo will burst into flower and die.

The life cycle of muli bamboo, the predominant species in India's
northeast, is about 50 years. In 1959, the last time the bamboo forests
of Mizoram flowered, the abundance of seeds produced by the plants
created a plague of rats, which in turn devoured rice paddies, leading
to widespread famine in the region. As many as 15,000 people died, and
festering resentment over the lack of help from the government in Delhi
led to a violent separatist rebellion that lasted 25 years.

One suggestion offered by the state government has been the preemptive
harvesting of bamboo. But logistical problems, such as how to transport
or use the bamboo, are daunting, and the bamboo forests of the region
have become something of a ticking time bomb, say observers.

"It is a natural disaster of the same magnitude as a flood or an
earthquake," says M.P. Ranjan, head of the Center for Bamboo
Initiatives at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad,
India. Professor Ranjan is part of a coalition of botanists, engineers,
architects, and civil servants who are attempting to turn the impending
catastrophe into a source of economic opportunity.

The big question: What can you do with millions of acres of a plant
that's soon going to die? To listen to the bamboo faithful, there are
few things this "wonder grass" cannot be used for.

Lightweight, durable, and more easily renewable than wood, bamboo can
be woven, mashed into pulp, and pressed into fiberboard. Bamboo's
utility, and its ubiquity in some of the world's poorest regions, has
led some, including India's former prime minister, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, to refer to the plant as "green gold."

The numbers speak for themselves: A single clump of bamboo can produce
as much as 10 miles of usable pole in its life cycle. The
fastest-growing species can gain a meter in a single day - almost
enough to see the growth with the naked eye. Nearly 1 billion people
worldwide live in some sort of bamboo structure, including 75 percent
of the population of Bangladesh.

There have been more than 1,500 documented uses for bamboo, and by one
estimate the annual economic value of total bamboo consumption is $10
billion. By 2015, that figure is expected to double.

Ranjan has dedicated his career to exploring innovative uses of bamboo.
He recently gathered 100 architects at the NID, who came up with 150
designs for objects including beds, chairs - and even an abstract
bamboo rocking horse. Another of Ranjan's concepts involves molding
laminated bamboo fibers into almost any object.

He suggests that bamboo car bumpers are not too far off. Ranjan takes
his cues from traditional methods: In a book on indigenous bamboo
crafts of northeast India, he documented 400 native designs, from fish
traps to musical instruments.

One of the more futuristic uses of bamboo was recently tested at the
Earthquake Engineering and Vibration Research Centre in Bangalore. The
center has a state-of-the-art "triaxial earthquake simulator" - a
computer- controlled 3-by-3-meter platform mounted on hydraulic shocks.

A prototype house built entirely of bamboo - with bamboo-reinforced
concrete walls and a waterproof, resin-coated bamboo roof - was
subjected to five consecutive 30-second pulses equivalent to 7.8 on the
Richter scale.

"We subjected it to the highest level of earthquake to be found
anywhere in the world, and it didn't even crack the paint," says Paul
Follett of the Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA),
based in Britain, which helped conduct the tests with funding from the
British government. TRADA's mandate on this project is to design safe,
affordable, sustainable housing for the developing world. Whatever
developments are made will be "open source" - freely available to
whoever wishes to use them.

According to Mr. Follett, this bamboo-based housing technology has the
potential to provide disaster relief around the world. Easily
prefabricated, the structures can be put up in three weeks, and last 50
years. At $5 a square foot, costs are roughly half of traditional
"brick-and-block" construction, and mass production would probably
drive the costs down further. With the wide variety of goods that can
be produced from bamboo, Follett sees it as being able to provide not
only housing, but a sustainable livelihood. He dreams of an entire
social economy based around the plant.

The Indian government, in an attempt to boost bamboo harvesting before
flowering begins, has eliminated all export duties until 2007. It has
also launched an initiative to invest $500 million in bamboo
development in the next decade, with the aim of creating 8 million jobs.

As ambitious as these initiatives are, the likelihood of staving off
the disaster is slim. "Will we be prepared to deal with this by 2006?"
asks Ranjan of the NID. "Unlikely. We must start planning now for the
next flowering of the bamboo in 50 years. These are problems that will
keep returning. They are part of the natural order."

(c) Copyright 2004 The Christian Science Monitor.  All rights reserved.

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L.F.London
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