Bamboo and rattan grow locally to some of the world’s poorest communities in the tropics and subtropics, and have many uses, providing a vast range of sustainable products, livelihood options and ecosystem services. If we can harness the potential of bamboo and rattan, the Global South will be closer to achieving its ambitious development, climate and environmental aims, including the Sustainable Development Goals, REDD+ targets, the Paris Agreement commitments, and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
SDG 1: End Poverty
Bamboo and rattan provide an important source of livelihood for millions of people, particularly in rural areas. This fact explains why bamboo and rattan industry helps improving living conditions and reduce poverty:
- Bamboo and rattan have a multiple array of high-value end uses as commodities. Bamboo can be used to make products such as laminated plywood, flat-pack furniture and activated charcoal; rattan, meanwhile, is being used for furniture and potentially as a material in bone replacement. The huge variety of potential products gives producers a wide range of options and increases their flexibility in times of market stress.
- Bamboo and rattan have a long history of use in many societies. The processing of new products can build on existing skills and is more likely to be chosen by stakeholders than an entirely new technology.
- Bamboo’s lightweight and linear-splitting nature makes it comparatively easier to process than timber. This provides farmers, many of whom are women, with opportunities to engage in initial processing, and this increases their share in value addition.
- Rattan is a very important plant for many poor communities. Certain rural communities across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam derive 50 per cent of their cash income from rattan products.
- Bamboo can be intercropped, requires few inputs and grows back after harvesting without the need for replanting—making it an essentially ‘renewable’ resource.
SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
Bamboo is gradually being recognized as a globally important biomass resource. Bamboo biomass can be used directly as fuelwood; modified into charcoal for cooking and heating; or converted into gas for thermal and electrical energy generation. It is a strategic, but often overlooked, resource for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7: ensuring clean and sustainable energy access for all.
- Bamboo as charcoal. More than 2.7 billion people—38% of the world’s population—are estimated to rely on solid biomass for cooking. However, this wood is often harvested unsustainably and is a principal driver of deforestation in some countries.
By contrast, bamboo can be harvested in a relatively short period and does not require replanting after harvesting, so it provides a continuous supply of material. Using bamboo for cooking and heating can take pressure off other forest resources, avoiding deforestation. These qualities make bamboo a suitable bio-energy resource for domestic as well as industrial applications.
Bamboo cultivation and conversion into charcoal also offers great potential for income generating options: a rural household could earn over USD 1000 a year from producing bamboo charcoal.
- Bamboo as biomass for gasifiers. Bamboo has great potential to generate thermal energy, as well as electricity, through gasification. It is locally sourced, grows fast and compares well to other forms of biomass for gasification. 1.2 kg of bamboo produces one kilowatt hour of electricity. This is similar to the biomass requirement for wood or timber, and better than other types of powdered biomass such as saw dust or peanut, coffee and rice husk.
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Bamboo supplies millions of households across the world with employment and building materials. It is often used as a fast-growing alternative to timber or other resources, and its products can have a low or even negative carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Bamboo reduces pressure on forest resources and can replace cement and plastic in drainage pipes, housing and storage facilities. It also creates resilient structures which can withstand earthquakes. As such, this plant has the potential to play a major role in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11: creating affordable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure and housing.
SDG 12: Sustainable Consumption and Production
Bamboo is an excellent renewable resource, and is often used as a fast-growing alternative to timber. Although taxonomically bamboo is a grass species, some kinds of bamboo grow over a meter a day and mature rapidly, becoming hard and wood-like within a small number of years.
As well as being renewable, bamboo products can also have a low or even negative carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Bamboo and rattan are also very versatile: these plants have thousands of documented uses, and can replace materials with high carbon emissions, such as PVC, steel and concrete. This reduces pressure on use of forest timber resources. Increasingly, bamboo and rattan can create products which are very useful in public infrastructure, including pipes, housing and storage facilities.
SDG 13: Climate Action
Bamboo can be a tool for large-scale carbon storage. Over a period of time, well-managed bamboo plants and products can sequester more carbon than certain species of tree. Bamboo’s ability to store carbon extends to durable products, which lock carbon in for the extent of their lifespan. Bamboo and rattan can replace a larger number of materials with high carbon emissions, such as PVC, steel and concrete, also reducing pressure on use of forest timber resources. Indeed, bamboo products can have a low or even negative carbon footprint across their lifecycle.
Finally, bamboo and rattan can help communities and individuals adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. Bamboo building materials are strong and flexible, and resilient to certain kinds of disaster which may occur as slow-onset climate change impacts. Bamboo can also restore degraded lands and protect forests, thus combatting desertification.
SDG 15: Life on Land
BIODIVERSITY
Bamboos and rattans can play an important role in primate conservation for three key reasons. Firstly, bamboo and rattans provide a direct source of nutrition for many primates such as the giant panda, mountain gorilla, the bale monkey, and the greater bamboo lemur. Rattans, with their relatively long fruiting seasons, can also provide an important source of food for primates at critical times in the year.
As well as this, bamboo and rattans also provide important shelter, dwelling and habitats for many primates across the world. Bamboo is a component of forest ecosystems across the tropics and subtropics, while rattans form a key element of some of the world’s most important biodiverse hotspots and primate habitats in South and Southeast Asia and West and Central Africa.
Finally, supporting communities to sustainably manage and utilize bamboo and rattan provides vital sources of income to poor smallholder communities, helping to reduce pressure on primate habitats. Today, bamboo and rattan are already among the world’s most valuable non-timber forest products, with an estimated market value of USD 60 billion. Rural smallholder communities benefiting from these markets can become an integral part of conservation efforts.
LAND RESTORATION
Bamboo is a strategic resource that many countries can use to restore their degraded landscapes and reverse the dangers of desertification. Its rapid growth and strong root systems make bamboo a powerful soil protection tool. Estimates show that a single bamboo plant can bind up to 6 meters cubed of soil. As well as this, most bamboo species form an evergreen canopy, dropping leaves year round and improving soil health.
Bamboo can also prevent deforestation by reducing pressure on existing forest resources. Farmers and foresters who can regularly harvest raw materials and fuel from bamboo stands are under less economic pressure to unsustainably exploit fewer renewable forests, especially if the bamboo is close to home. Strong, flexible and versatile, the plant has some 10,000 different uses, providing an opportunity for rural communities to participate in a growing global sector worth some USD 60 billion every year.