Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
14.1 INTRODUCTION
Bamboo, perhaps the fastest growing plant on the planet, has a very im-
portant role to play in restoring balance to the Earth's climate system.
Currently, the 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent produced each
year by human activity are wreaking havoc on the global environment.
Efforts to curb our CO
2
emission are essential but much more needs to be
done. Soon! Global efforts are underway to reduce our planetary carbon
emissions below 1990 levels. That still leaves a lot of CO
2
being put into
the atmosphere each year by human activities. Bamboo offers perhaps the
quickest way to remove vast amounts of that carbon dioxide from the at-
mosphere. Each acre of bamboo sequesters up to 40 tons of CO
2
. The
bamboo plant eats carbon dioxide, takes CO
2
from the atmosphere and
through the process of photosynthesis turns it into sugars. The bamboo
plant transforms these sugars into the compounds that make up bamboo
fiber. The carbon from the atmosphere is thus locked up in the bamboo
fiber itself. When that bamboo fiber is used to construct buildings the car-
bon in it is sequestered for the 100-year lifetime of the building. Bamboo
is only effective for long-term carbon sequestration if the bamboo plant
is being regularly harvested and that harvest turned into durable goods
or biochar. Left unharvested the sequestration rate of the bamboo plant
levels off. By harvesting 20% of the biomass of the plant each year as 3+
year old mature bamboo culms, the high rates of carbon sequestration are
maintain for the 50-75 year life of the bamboo plant. Unlike most trees
you are not killing the bamboo plant when you harvest. Each year the mat
of primitive roots called rhizomes is expanding, sequestering additional
carbon for the life of the bamboo plant. Also unlike trees the bamboo plant
produces microscopic plant stones that encapsulated carbon in silica and
sequester an additional half-ton per acre of carbon for possibly thousands
of years. Bamboos are among the fastest-growing plants, growing at up to
a meter per day. Unlike trees, bamboos form extensive rhizome and root
systems, which can extend up to 100 km/ha and live for a hundred years.
Culms that emerge from the rhizomes die naturally after about 10 years
if not harvested before. The rhizome system survives the harvesting of
individual culms, so the bamboo ecosystem can be productive while con-
tinuing to store carbon, as new culms will replace the harvested ones. The
lost biomass is usually replaced within a year. Bamboo can be an efficient
tool for both climate change mitigation and adaptation, but there is a lack
