About Bamboo

• The Fastest growing woody plant on this planet.
  It grows one third faster than the fastest growing tree. Some species can grow up to 1 meter per day. One can almost "watch it grow". Size ranges from miniatures to towering culms of 60 meters or 180 feet.
  
  
• Producing four to five time more bio-mass than trees felled for wood production.
  Bamboo is ready for harvesting within 3 to 5 years versus oak, cherry, maple and exquisite rain forest hardwoods, that in some cases, take more than 100 years to grow to maturity.
  
  
• Bamboo is giant grass and Amazingly versatile with a short growth cycle.
  There are over 1000 species of bamboo on the earth. This diversity makes bamboo adaptable to many environments. Bamboo is capable of tolerating extremes in precipitation. The acceptable range or rainfall is from 30 to 250 inches of rain annually.
  
  
• Bamboo is on of the strongest building materials in the World.
  Bamboo's tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel.
  
  
• A critical element in the balance of oxygen/carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the re-greening of degraded areas. Bamboo generates more oxygen than the equivalent stand of trees.
  
  
• A soil conservation tool.
  Bamboo has anti-erosion properties that create an effective watershed. The rhizomes stitch the soil together along fragile areas. First re-greening in Hiroshima after the atomic blast in 1945.
  
  
• A critical element of the economy.
  Bamboo and its related industries already provide income, food and housing to over 2.2 billion people worldwide. There is a 3 - 5 years return on investment for a new bamboo plantation versus 8 - 10 years for rattan.
  
  
• A renewable resource for agro forestry products.
  Bamboo is a high-yield renewable natural resource. Ply Bamboo is now being used for wall paneling, floor tiles. Bamboo pulp is used for paper making; briquettes and fuel. Bamboo can be used as a Raw material for housing construction and rebar for reinforced concrete beams.
  
  
• An essential structural material in earthquake architecture.
  In Limon Costa Rica only the Bamboo houses from the National Bamboo Project stood after the violent earthquake of 1992.