BAMBOO PLANTATIONS TASMANIA

 

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FOREWORD

Bamboo Plantations Tasmania: A new string to the bow

The market size of engineered bamboo within the Asia Pacific region is set to reach US$ 40.7 Bn by 2031 As Tasmania's native forestry declines and demand for timber skyrockets, the necessity for alternative building materials will continue to grow. Accordingly a new look at forestry and wood products in Tasmania is timely – but it must be sustainable and renewable. A planned campaign, titled ‘The New Tasmanian Renewable     Wonder Wood’ to promotes the sustainability and environmental advantages of a 'new plantation resource'. When trees are marketed as, harvested for today, and regrown for tomorrow, that’s why wood is seen as the ultimate renewable resource.

It’s been a convincing sales pitch designed to allay any fears or negativity associated with our timber industries. But is wood really in such a healthy position? 

Australia wide, as of 2022, only 4300 acres had been planted which is little more than 1% of the promised supply. Thinking about the "Timber Shortage", a quick snapshot In a submission to the NSW Legislative Council in June 2021, Forestry Australia stated that Australia is: 

• ... Firstly, heading for a timber supply crisis. We are now paying a huge price for under-investing in new softwood plantations and reducing the log supply from our native forests In August of this year, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry reported that; and

• ... Secondly, Australia’s total plantation area continues to decline and is currently at its smallest area since 2003-04, due to the ongoing conversion of hardwood plantations to other land uses. The softwood plantation estate has been stable for more than 20 years. There have been some (half-hearted) efforts to accelerate plantation growth, such as the 2018 promise by the Morrison government to plant a billion trees across 400,000 hectares by 2030. As of 2022, only 4300 acres had been planted which is little more than 1% of the promised supply. 


Why Bamboo then? Bamboo is  truly the ‘ultimate renewable’ given that it can reach  'sustainably harvestable production' within three years, 70% faster than plantation timbers generally. There is substance to the claim that bamboo is 'miracle plant'.

Moreover, what is produceable is multidimensional and in ways bamboo can be used for paper, textiles, flooring, furniture, weapons, musical instruments, writing materials, and baskets. It can also be used in water desalination and to mitigate against land degradation. Bamboo is a miracle plant! [LINK]

Due to Australia’s rising population, measured on a per capita basis, the softwood plantation estate declined 13.1% over the decade to 2016/2017 and as the population continues to grow this gap widens. 

Softwood is used primarily for lightweight timber framing for housing. The Albanese government has pledged billions to build 1.2 million new homes across the country. 

To make up for any building material shortfall for housing, Australia must rely on two alternatives - imported timber or steel framing. However, both are considered unsustainable options. 

So, the question hanging, all things considered, why are Tasmanians, Tasmanian politicians and Tasmanian investors in particular, so blind to the opportunities that are there to be taken up!? ... "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision." Helen Keller

HARNESSING BAMBOO'S POTENTIAL Australia’s diverse climate and landscapes provide ideal conditions for growing various bamboo species. Tasmania, offers an opportunity to. exploit a number of species too. By connecting bamboo to the existing timber industry, facilities producing Cross Laminated Timber can also process bamboo to create Cross Laminated Bamboo and Glulam with minimal modifications.

The 2019-2020 bushfires severely impacted Australia’s timber supply. Bamboo can serve as a sustainable alternative to alleviate deforestation and meet domestic demand. 

Also there is place for bamboo in the urban and peri-urban environment that 'trees' cannot quite match. So, when thinking about about bamboo's 'potential' there is a need to think more widely than simply from and industrial perspective.

To overcome government (State & Local) regulations, prejudices and misconceptions, it is essential to educate and communicate the benefits of bamboo, highlighting its potential as a sustainable and renewable resource. 

Albeit that Tasmania does not have any 'endemic bamboos' the plant has a place in the Tasmanian 'Cultural Landscape' alongside 'hoved animals' and European deciduous trees.

Bamboo and the Circular Economy

A circular bamboo economy can regenerate Tasmania’s degraded land and combat climate change to boot. By fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing, bamboo can become an integral part of land rehabilitation, especially in mining areas, sewerage treatment zones, and 'waste management centres'. This versatile plant can offer innovative opportunities for Australia/Tasmania, paving the way for a sustainable future.

Tasmania has enormous potential to create a thriving bamboo industry. By dispelling misconceptions and harnessing the power of various species, the State can develop a sustainable circular economy that benefits both the environment and its people.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATONS When we consider that bamboo as a 'Miracle Plant' and its production requiring no pesticides, chemical fertilizers, irrigation techniques nor replanting, it really starts to make sense, as an alternative to fibre crops like cotton, which is a standout amongst the most seriously sprayed crops on the planet and one that quickly exhausts the supplements in the dirt. Bamboo sequesters nitrogen and its growth does not add chemicals to nature.

Care must be taken however, when considering processed ‘bamboo fabric' as an eco friendly substitute for traditional clothing and bedding materials. In 2018, the fact is that most bamboo textiles are produced with cellulose extracted from bamboo which is chemically re-shaped to form a viscose rayon.

The only mechanical method of producing fine bamboo fibres, known as retting, isn’t widely practiced due to extra time and labour factors. Therefore, if you are buying bamboo textile products for purely ecological reasons, be very careful to read the manufacturer’s label and avoid products that mention rayon or viscose.

Outside this potential trap for ecological sympathisers, bamboo can rightly claim to be head and shoulders above just about any other agrarian related source of raw material for all the reasons mentioned on the links and gleaned information.

Whilst it’s true that planting a bamboo clump in your backyard probably WON’T save the planet, the more people with backyards, acreage and/or a concern for Mother Earth who grow bamboo, whether it be for: • a decorative purpose; • as a screen to achieve privacy; • as hedge that doubles as a windbreak; • and noise barrier; • or perhaps to harvest 'timber and/or food source', the more likely the earth is to say – THANK YOU PEOPLE!

A WAY FORWARD

Clearly, in Tasmania there is a need to build a market for the non-nursery bamboo products – timber, fencing, edible shoots, etc. – when the product is available. Like all 'new products' the task at hand is '' SELLING THE SIZZLE'' rather than the 'product'. It is especially so as there is virtually no established market for 'timber bamboo' in Tasmania and only a developing market in Australia.

With this recognised, and with a pioneering situation in hand, without a backer with 'deep pockets' it will be necessary to take the 'word-of-mouth community oriented approach' in developing a purposeful strategic marketing process for bamboo in its 2025/30 Tasmanian context.

Currently, and speculatively, that appears to be something like:

• Establishing the foundations for a Tasmanian Bamboo Producers Cooperative and/or an association/collective for Tasmanian Bamboo Growers and Producers – an inclusive network of networks;
• Being strategically proactive in initiating the planting of a 'proof-of-concept plantation'; and
• Being strategically proactive in initiating a planting aimed at waste-water-management;
• Being visible and present in 'the market' – at community markets etc.; and
• Being strategically visible and present in Social Media; and
• Being proactive in the advocacy for developing a 'Tasmanian Bamboo Industry with support networks.

Click here to watch the video

Initially, it seems that a group of investors might well follow the exemplary precedent the business X-Hemp has set – it is not for nothing that as 'products' there are synergies between bamboo and hemp. For example, the President at the Tasmanian Hemp Association believed wholeheartedly in her product and vision. X-Hemp soon realised the enormous breadth of opportunities available to hemp, such as food, fibre, extracts, fodder, carbon – everything from farm ecology through to agriculture, and everything in between.

All of that resonates for bamboo too albeit that bamboo's advocates will most likely find things that bamboo can do better.

As the adage goes ... the list of things you can and should do with bamboo is very, very long while the the list of things you cannot do, or should not do with bamboo is very, very short.

It is timely that the 'coloniser's cum settler's mindsets' were put to one side. With that achieved it would be timely, but late, to begin to listen and learn from the wisdom the the 'colonised', with the settler class doing a lot more listening than their spruiking the redundant wisdom of elsewhere.

Quote: “Wealth is still concentrated in the hands of a few powers whose wasteful economies are maintained by the exploitation of the labour as well as the transfer and the plunder of the national and other resources of the peoples of Africa, Latin America, Asia and other regions of the world.” Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979. The Movement now has 120 member countries.

Those 120 member counties of 'The Movement' – 3rd World Counties – knew a thing or two about the sustainability of their resources and over a very long period of time their people learned so very much about the world's miracle plants – coconuts, hemp, bamboo and bananas etc. – that the post-colonial settler class is yet to learn.

The fact of the matter is that by taking the initiative to proactively adopt and accept the materiality of bamboo as a resource in Tasmania will be building a richer cultural landscape. A stronger economy, as likely bas not, will be an anticipatable outcome.

The warrior, like bamboo, is ever ready for action
Kensho Furuya

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