ENVIRONMENTAL BAMBOO FOUNDATION (EBF)

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION

The Environmental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) is an Indonesian non-profit organization founded by designer Linda Garland in 1993 to protect tropical forests by promoting and demonstrating the many conservation and development opportunities that bamboo offers. In less than three years EBF has helped put bamboo on the conservation and development agenda of Indonesia while generating an international interest in bamboo that's growing exponentially. EBF, based in Bali, Indonesia has affiliate non-profit organizations in America (IBF), and Holland, also dedicated to spreading the news about bamboo.

The EBF has a focus upon international development, through consulting and education, preservation research, agro forestry projects, watershed reclamation, plantation development and policy development. Weekly educational workshops under the guidance of the staff of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation are ongoing in Indonesia. To date, all EBFand IBF board members have volunteered their time and resources to promote bamboo as an environmental solution. The EBF works in concert with the International Bamboo Foundation, the Zeri Foundation and an international network of bamboo associations, scientists, universities and governments.

EBF's main activities include:

• Design and marketing of locally produced, high quality bamboo products.
• Education and training in all aspects of bamboo production, from planting to marketing.
• Bamboo-based agro forestry and watershed rehabilitation.
• Applied research, information gathering and dissemination.
• Networking with government officials, entrepreneurs and bamboo experts.

EBF works in collaboration with:

• The Indonesian Government at national, provincial, district, sub-district, and village levels.
• International, national, and regional NGO's.
• International and national higher education and research institutions.
• Community groups.
• Private-sector entrepreneurs.
• Bamboo specialists from around the world.

WHERE WE'VE BEEN ...

The IVth IBC:

In 1995 the EBF hosted the IVth International Bamboo Congress, architectural forum, trade show and music festival in Bali, Indonesia. This four day world class environmental event drew over 2000 attendees from 37 countries. For the first time, the world's leading scientists, business representatives, engineers, architects, environmentalists and politicians participated together to promote bamboo as an environmental solution. This event was covered in Indonesia by CNN's Elsa Klench...

It was a landmark event when Indonesian Minister of the Environment, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, who officiated at the opening of the Congress, committed Indonesia to the "Zero Emissions" policy, after meeting with Gunter Pauli, co-author with Fritjof Capra of "Steering Business Towards Sustainability". In partnership with the IBF and EBF , Mr. Pauli, has since gone on to found ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Initiative). This effort has now created standards for industrial reform worldwide of the recycling of waste and reduction of CO2 emissions. This event was one example of the diverse range of environmental solutions explored and launched at the conference.

Training Center at Penglipuran:

In 1994 a fully equipped training center , surrounded by bamboo gardens and nurseries, was created in Penglipuran. Its facilities include classrooms, workshops, an office, a dormitory, and a kitchen. Equipment at the center includes basic tools and machines for bamboo preservation and making ply-bamboo. The Center is managed cooperatively with the Penglipuan community, who contributed land and labor for its construction. Funding for this project came from a grant from USAID and the Earth Love Fund (UK).

Training Indonesia's First Group of Bamboo Trainers

In early 1995 the Bamboo Training Center in Penglipuran hosted thirty people from NGOs and government agencies in Indonesia, who were trained in all aspects of bamboo cultivation, production, and marketing. After the program, participants returned home with locality specific bamboo action plans including agro forestry and watershed protection, as well as production and marketing of bamboo products. EBF intends to provide continued technical and marketing support to this first group of trainers, as well as to training of an additional group in 1996.

Supporting Indonesia's National Bamboo Development Strategy

As a direct result of the IVth International Bamboo Congress, Festival and Trade Show, the Government of Indonesia's commitment to bamboo for conservation and development has been solidified. In late 1995, bamboo was declared a multi-purpose species, thus opening the way to research and development for bamboo applications in the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry. In February 1996, the government initiated the National Bamboo Development Strategy, coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment and Department of Forestry, including representatives from nine Ministries and Departments. EBF is pleased to have been invited to take an active role in the implementation of Indonesia's National Bamboo Development Strategy Program.

WHERE WE ARE NOW...

Establishment of Bamboo Based Agro forestry Projects

The EBF has initiated three bamboo based agro forestry projects in Bali. One site is located ion community land managed through traditional community institutions (Tanah Adat), and is operated both as a producing plantation and as a demonstration plot in cooperation with local farmers. The second project is located on degraded forestland and is managed in collaboration with the Department of Forestry. Active on these projects are scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), Udayana University professors and students, government officials at the national, provincial and local level, representatives from Indonesian NGO's and community groups.

These seemingly modest projects far reaching effects have already fostered:

• Formation of a special team of Indonesian scientists who will develop onsite applied research to extensive bamboo cultivation throughout Indonesia.
• Training opportunities for government and NGO field workers, and local farmers who are learning new techniques adaptable for other areas
• Generation of Indonesia's first set of comprehensive data (to be completed within five years) to support the overall expansion of bamboo production throughout Indonesia.

WHERE WE'RE GOING ...

Boucherie Bamboo Preservation

The powder post beetle continues to inhibit the potential of bamboo export market development. In collaboration with Professor Walter Liese, an EBF board member and the world's leading expert in bamboo processing, EBF has developed a treatment process that eliminates this problem by replacing the sweet sap in bamboo with an eco-friendly preservative that repels insects. This year, we will continue researching the viability of this system and develop a prototype that can be used by entrepreneurs for income generation in through out Indonesia and internationally. Concurrently, the EBF will train NGO's community groups and entrepreneurs interested in establishing their own treatment facilities. Finally in collaboration with the Penglipuran community, EBF will begin selling treated bamboo in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the Boucherie process as a distinct business and to generate revenues to sustain the foundations work.

The Bali Nursery and Collection Garden

EBF is working with the Government of Indonesia to establish Bali's Bamboo Collection Garden, one of seven such gardens to be set up across the nation to conserve bamboo stock, provide research and education opportunities, promote ecotourism, and generate income from a visitor's entrance fee as well as from the sale of bamboo plants. The Bali Bamboo Collection Garden will be established at the EBF Training Center in Penglipuran and will eventually include species traded from six other Indonesian collection gardens.

Charitable Contributions are acknowledged by a receipt for tax deductions over USD$300 Thank you for your support

EBF - Bali P.O. BOX 196, Ubud, Bali Indonesia 80571 Phone: 62 361 974 028 Fax: 62 361 974 029

Taken from : http://www.bamboocentral.org

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Bamboo the hot material in home design

By Pamela Sherrod, Chicago Tribune, 1/16/2003

It takes the average human about 51/2 years to grow to 4 feet. It takes some forms of bamboo just one day.Compared with woody plants, the growth rate of this reedy grass is unmatched and, these days, you could say the same for its popularity among home-furnishing designers. Bamboo is in the house, just about everywhere.

It's real and faux. Sometimes it's bamboo, the material, sometimes bamboo, the shape. It is turning up in wall coverings, flooring, furniture, and decorative accessories such as baskets and bedding.

Why bamboo? Why now?

Largely, the bamboo boom is due to the allure of the Asian aesthetic, particularly its simplicity, which has been growing continuously for the last 10 years. It also can be attributed to a yearning for the things bamboo has symbolized in Eastern cultures for centuries: strength, resiliency, flexibility, longevity, good luck. The durability and renewability of the plant (it's actually a grass that grows faster and requires less land than trees) also makes it an attractive and eco-friendly alternative to more traditional wood choices.

People like the idea of having renewable natural resources around them, says Terri Erdos, vice president of Jamson Whyte's US operations, which offers bamboo designs for bedroom, living room, and dining room. ''More people are focusing on the home and focusing on those things that are natural.''

The 10-year-old Singapore-based Jamson Whyte, which has a store in New York and a Web site (www.jamsonwhyte.com), is known for designs featuring Indonesian and Balinese bamboos. One of its most attractive is a sleigh bed that combines teak and bamboo ($1,600 to $2,000). The warm golden brown in the teak and the pecan shading in the bamboo provide a light but solid feel to the design.

''I think bamboo also gives people the feeling that they can be someplace else within their home by creating another world there for themselves,'' Erdos says.

Still, it's the concern for the environment - hers and her customers' - that drives Bonnie Trust Dahan to include bamboo designs in her Pure Seasons mail-order catalog and Web site (www.pureseasons.com). Dahan's Sausalito, Calif.-based company, which features natural products for the home, found interest in bamboo was greater than expected when the catalog was introduced in the spring. Because of the demand, Pure Seasons added more bamboo designs for the kitchen, bedroom, child's room, and floors.

Bamboo is ''less formal and more adaptable'' than other woods, says Dahan. ''When bamboo is cut correctly, it has a satin sheen to it that you don't get in other woods.''

The reedy grass with tensile strength is found throughout Asia.

''It's been used for centuries in Asian cultures, and it has been used for everything,'' says Stanley Murashige, who teaches art history and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He says it's found in furniture, construction, basketry, musical instruments, paper, kitchen tools, dinnerware - even food.

It also has its place in the arts, in paintings and poetry. ''It has long been appreciated for the beauty of its shape and for the extraordinary varieties that it comes in,'' says Murashige, who is third-generation Chinese- and Japanese-American.

''Bamboo as a metaphor began in China,'' Murashige says. ''It is also a metaphor in Korea and Japan.'' In the Philippines, it recently was chosen as a symbol of peace and unity by two warring groups in Mindanao because it reflected, as one religious figure put it, the Filipino character: ''resistant, resilient, enduring, loving, gentle, peaceful...''

''It does have some cliche symbols and meanings that have personal association, such as being resilient because it bends under the force of winds,'' Murashige says. ''This becomes a metaphor for someone's virtue, which remains steady under an onslaught.''

Because bamboo is evergreen, it also suggests longevity. Bamboo is also hollow inside, and Murashige says ''that emptiness becomes a metaphor for a being that is empty, unbiased, and unprejudiced, seeing all possibilities in all situations.''

Murashige, however, is drawn to bamboo simply because of its beauty. ''It's something nice to have,'' he says.

''Even if it is not actually bamboo, people like the look and the patterns,'' says Ingrid Koepcke, decor specialist at EXPO Design Center in Chicago. EXPO (with Boston-area centers in Braintree and Burlington) has a collection of bamboo designs that include furniture ($30 to $100) and wall coverings made by Imperial, Thibaut, and Seabrook.

Designers have responded not only by featuring this relatively new ''wood'' source but also by borrowing bamboo's silhouette for textiles, detailing in furniture, and accessories, such as door handles and vases.

The lookalike bamboo styles in desks, tables, and chairs have reed-shaped legs that are sometimes the same natural shade as real bamboo and sometimes in a black or red lacquered finish. In vases, styles come in glass and ceramic, with the shape being true to the look of bamboo.

Bamboo patterns show up in upholstery and wall coverings, where the patterns and texture feel and look like the real thing.

''The look is simple, but still sophisticated and relaxing,'' says Koepcke. That's just what people want today.

This story ran on page H9 of the Boston Globe on 1/16/2003. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Source : bambooplantation [dot] com

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THE WONDER OF THE BAMBOO

Based on the test results from laboratory and actual application, bamboo fiber has the following properties: Bamboo fiber contains anti-bacterial properties, which is effective against bacteria and fungi, eliminating odor naturally. The moisture absorbency is twice that of cotton with extraordinary soil release value.

Bamboo fiber is softer in texture than cotton. Fabric and products made of this fiber having a feel similar to a blend of Cashmere and Silk. Most importantly, the price of bamboo fiber is competitive with other fibers. Upon your request, we can manufacture your bamboo fiber samples, or your finished retail products, to your company's specifications.

Bamboo Fiber T-shirts are the most comfortable and softest textile products. Made from an 21/1 Ring Spun yarn. Our Bamboo T-shirt is 70% bamboo fiber and 30% cotton and is pre-shrunk. Bamboo fiber T-shirts are naturally anti-bacterial, biodegradable and extremely soft. Once you wear one of our Bamboo T-shirts you will never want to wear another 100% cotton T-shirt.

Bamboo clothing will never stick to your body or skin, even on the hottest of days, and will always make you feel extremely cool under any condition. Our T-shirts have much better moisture absorption with ventilation and are known for their breathability.

Bamboo T-shirts will spark new interest in the everyday-consumer that has only experienced cotton, nylon and "special" blends that cause odors and harbor bacteria. It is beautiful to the eye and nothing can adequately describe how wonderful Bamboo T-shirts are to the touch.

Bamboo fiber clothes are the world's most comfortable clothes. Our Bamboo fiber T-shirts are destined to revolutionize the T-shirt industry!!!

Source : alibaba [dot] com Read more!

Bamboo Agroforestry

Agroforestry is the integration of woody plants with other ag enterprises such as crop or livestock production. The idea behind agroforestry is to derive both economic and ecological benefits, two key goals of sustainable agriculture.

Bamboo as a woody grass plant is uniquely suited to agroforestry. Some of the many uses of bamboo in agroforestry are summarized in the list below.

Agroforestry Function ¾ Primary Use

1. Intercropping
2. Riparian vegetation filter
3. Constructed wetlands
4. Living screens
5. Permaculture

Agroforestry Products ¾ Value-Added

1. Timber
2. Craftwood
3. Fiber crop
4. Livestock forage
5. Bamboo shoots

Source : www.attra.ncat.org

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Potential Bamboo Markets

Potential markets and bamboo products in the United States are summarized below. In most circumstances, bamboo should be viewed as a complementary crop that fills a niche market or serves a purpose on the farm, rather than a primary cash crop.

• Plant Material: Landscape nursery plant material; zoos; botanical gardens
• Food: Fresh bamboo shoots
• Construction Material: Concrete reinforcement; bamboo fencing; housing
• Musical Instruments: Flutes; wind chimes; pan pipes; xylophones
• Tools: Bamboo leaf rakes
• Furniture & Crafts: Toys; wood working inlay; trim work; paneling; basketry weaving; frames; jewelry; fishing poles; floral stakes; garden stakes; trellis poles
• Conservation: Living screens; agroforestry; riparian filter strips; constructed wetlands;wildlife habitat

source : www.attra.ncat.org

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Golden Bamboo

Common Names: golden bamboo, fishpole bamboo, running bamboo

Native Origin: China; and cultivated in Japan for centuries.

Description: Golden bamboo culms can reach a height of 8 to 10 meters. The alternate, grass-like, leaves are lanceolate; 1.5 dm long and 1 to 2 cm wide and often in fan clusters. The edges of the leaves may be rough or smooth without lobes. Golden bamboo flowers infrequently, may not flower for several decades and in many cases will preclude the death of the plant. Spikelets are solitary and 8 to 12 flowered. Stems are solid jointed canes 1 to 6 inches (2.5 to 15 cm) in diameter that are hollow between joints and golden to green to black. Stems branch wiry and grass-like from joints. Lower shoots and branches with loose papery sheaths cover the ground when shed. Roots primarily spread by rhizomes. Shoots develop in the spring with initiation primarily controlled by temperature. The culms grow from side shoots at alternate nodes of the rhizome.

Habitat: Golden bamboo thrives in full sun in all but the hottest climates where it requires some shade. It will grow in sparsely wooded secondary forests. Vigorous growth and spread is seen in moist, deep loamy soils. In habitats less than ideal, it will continue to grow and spread at a diminished rate.

Distribution: This species is reported from states shaded on Plants Database map. It is reported invasive in GA, MD, PA, VA, and WV.

Ecological Impacts: It is common around old home-sites and has escaped. It colonized by rhizomes with infestations rapidly expanding after disturbance.

Control and Management:

• Manual- Cutting/Mowing: This method can be used on small infestations or where herbicides cannot be used. Cut plants as close to the ground as possible. Repeat several times throughout the growing season as plants re-sprout. Monitoring and retreatment will be necessary for several growing seasons until the energy reserves in the rhizomes are exhausted.

• Chemical- It can be effectively controlled using any of several readily available general use herbicides such as glyphosate. Foliar Spray Method: This method should be considered for large areas of bamboo where risk to non-target species is minimal. Air temperature should be above 65°F to ensure absorption of herbicides. Follow label and state requirements.

References: www.forestimages.org, http://plants.usda.gov, www.nps.gov/plants/alien, Invasive Plants of the Eastern United States www.invasive.org, Miller, James H., Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests, A Field Guide for Identification and Control. USDS SRS-62, p. 56-57

Produced by the USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Staff, Newtown Square, PA. Invasive Plants website: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/invasive_plants

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About Bamboo, the Giant Grass

Bamboo forest ecosystem. A dense, evergreen bamboo forest is a peaceful and magical place. As the wind bends the flexible bamboo, the poles clack and the leaves whisper. Bamboo has inspired human beings for millenia.

The fastest growing plant. Bamboo is not a tree, it is a giant grass. Some species grow four feet in one day! Bamboo reaches full height in one growth spurt of about two months. When bamboo is harvested, the root system is unharmed and healthy, ready to produce more shoots, just like a grass lawn.

1500 varieties. Bamboo grows naturally in the tropical world extending to temperate climates. Running bamboo spreads underground and pops up like a weed. Clumping bamboo is preferred because it remains in the area it is planted.

5000 uses. For thousands of years, bamboo has benefited people in Asia, Africa, South America: building materials with the strength of steel, furniture, weapons (first rocket was a bamboo tube stuffed with gunpowder), writing and musical instruments, fuel, food, medical products.

Bamboo for building. Some grows so large it is called timber bamboo- 120 feet high and 13" diameter. Thick bamboo poles are 2-3 times stronger than comparable size of wood timber. Bamboo can be harvested in 7 years versus 10-50 years for softwoods and hardwoods, yielding up to 20 times more than wood. One bamboo clump can produce 200 poles in the five years it takes one tree to reach maturity. Bamboo can be sustainably harvested and replenished with virtually no impact to the environment.

Grow your own home. It's a renewable resource for housing, flooring, paneling, fencing and more. In the tropics, it's possible to grow your own home. In Costa Rica, 1000 bamboo houses have been built annually from a 60 hectare (150 acre) plantation.

Source : bambooliving.com

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