THE 20th CENTURY in RETROSPECT for BAMBOO TRADE
and PROSPECTS for the 21st CENTURY
Professor Zhou Fangchun
(Bamboo Research Institute, Nanjing Forestry University)
Abstract
Forest has been unprecedentedly destroyed from which the rapid de-creasing in the forest area on the earth has been resulted with industry de-veloping and material wealth accumu-lating rapidly in the 20th century. For example,the total forest area (3,738 million hm2.)in the world accounts for 25 per cent of that of mainland in 1950, however, it(2,492 million hm2) will account for only one-sixth in 2000. The forest coverage in the world has dropped from 25% to 17% in the past 50 years; the total area of vanished forest is 1246 million hm2 with average 24.92 million hm2 vanished in area per year，namely 47.41 hm2 per minute. According to this speed，the forest on the earth will be destroyed completely within the 21st century, therefore, mankind cannot survive without living environment.
As a boyguard of the ecological environment on the earth, forest (in-clude bamboo forest) should be protected and developed in all the countries. The sustaining development policy must be taken into account when we make pros-pects for the forest resources in the world in the 21st century. Mankind will pay more attention to forest in its protection and development by which the thriving in bamboo trade will bring out,It is estimated that the total area of bamboo forest in the world in the 21st will raise 2-3 times than that in the 20th century, and bamboo-wood produc-tion will raise 2.5-3.5 times, and the ecological benefit of bamboo forest will also be paid more attention to.
I. Retrospect for Bamboo Trade in the World in the 20th Century
1.Bamboo Resources
As one of the forest resources, bamboos in the world are estimated to include about 1200 species belonging to over 70 genera whose area is about 22 million hm2 and the annual bamboo-wood is about 5-200t.Bamboos are mainly distributed in the tropics and the subtropics where bamboos often form a mixed forest with other trees, moreover, being below the main story, it used to be paid little attention to in the past years, however, after removing the over topping trees in these two regions (the tropics and the subtropics), bamboo has been regenerated as secondary bamboo stand with the characteristics of fast growing, rapid propagating and easy regenerating since the 20th century. Besides, when people realize its high economical value and continually widen use, the artificial bamboo stands have been formed by planting bamboos. Both the secondary stand and the artificial stand are spreading around by means of bamboos' powerful subterranean rhizomes. Most of bamboo stands are still out of cultivation and low yield with over-harvested and little attention to its conservation and management. By contrast, better management and more attention are paid to bamboo stands in China and Japan.
2.Bamboo Utilization
Bamboo has been used in building houses, making bamboo watercrafts and appliance for production, living and culture entertainment, taking shelter from the wind and improving residential environment and using its shoots for food by people of bamboo-producing countries such as Asia, Africa, and South American since as early as the beginning of mankind activities. Man-kind's food, clothes, house and means of transportation have close relation with bamboo. Liyose, a famous British scholar, once said a word:" East-Asia civili-zation is just bamboo civilization "There are only several large-sized bamboo species in South America where its major use is not in utilization. Bamboo utilization in Africa is far less than that in Asia countries.
［1］Use in Countryside Production and People's Daily Life
More than 70% of the annual bamboo wood produced in the world has been used for countryside buildings, agricultural production and people's daily life and less than 30% in modern industry raw- material. In bamboo-producing countries of Asia，bamboo utilization can compare with timber's.
［2］Use in Paper-making
The properties of bamboo wood such as long and thin fiber, good plasticity are ideal for making different kinds of high-quality paper pulp, artificial silk and glass paper. Bamboo has many advantages like fast growth, high yield, growing into full size in short time and highly renewable, therefore, it can be used sustaintedly. Bamboo culms gen-erally contain higher and better fiber than many hardwoods. Bamboo forest's per unit area annual fiber production is 1-2 times higher than that of coniferous or hardwood forest. Bamboo fiber content is 40-60%, with big density and without stripping, and its cooking quantity increases by 10-20% than that of timber or grass. Now ，the annul pulp is 146 million tons in the world, of which bamboo pulp is about 2 million tons. In India, among all raw-materials used in making paper, bamboo wood accounts for 2/3 of them; In Bangladesh there are 3 bamboo paper-mills;4 bamboo paper-mills have been built in China since 1980s. Apart from being used in making paper, bamboo fiber still can be made into cellulose or nitrocellulose. Much re-search have been done on the techniques in saccharifying, fodderifying bamboo wood and producing active carbon in Japan Kyoto Timber Institute.
［3］Bamboo Shoot Production
Edible bamboo shoots contain sugar, protein, cellulose and a great variety of minarel nutrition elements, vitamin A, B, C, and so on; they are considered to be natural health food promoting digest and excretion and reducing harmful substances and the occurring
rate of toxication disease and bowel cancer. The people of bamboo-producing have the habit of eating bamboo shoots. But in Southeast countries, bamboo shoots are mainly produced as com-modities. In Japan the annual bamboo shoots is 0.12-0. 15 million tons，and its quantity increase year by year on consumption per person. For example: 1.2,2.47,3.08Kg/person in 1955-1960, 1971-1980,1981-1991 year respectively.［4］Bamboo Wood Processing
In spite of its clear advantages in physical, mechanical properties, the use of bamboo has been largely limited due to its size, form and fistular culm. Bamboos are mainly used in building houses, making furniture, farm tools and daily necessaries in bam-boo-producing countries, of which the processing techniques is simple and the quality is low. China occupies first place in the world in the varieties, scale and output of bamboo artificial boards. Bamboo plain-sawed board has been manufactured in Japan, however, production of scale hasn't been formed. Bamboo mosaic board and laminated plywood have been manufactured in Philippine.
［5］Use in Making Bamboo Products and in Construction
China occupies the first place in the world in fine bamboo weaving, bamboo carving, bamboo handicraft articles, ratten products and bamboo articles of everyday use. Bamboo is also one of the oldest and most versatile building materials with many application in the field of construction. Those bamboo buildings in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province and those bamboo corridor in Taohuayuan, Hunan province impress people as being beautiful and impos-ing.Bamboo fine workmanship and bamboo products used in flower and tea culture are finely made in Japan.
Some parks and temples are decorated with bamboo fence and bamboo doors. Bamboo fishing rod made in South Korea and bamboo musical instruments and bamboo weavings made in the countries of Southeast Asia sell well all over the world. In China, bamboo veneers (made from large, thick-walled culms) were once used to make attached tank of militant aircraft in 1940s; bamboo woods have replaced concrete iron used in building houses in 1950s. Now, in India and Thailand bamboo reinforced concrete is still used in construction.
［6］Bamboo Introduction
Maozhu (Phyllostachys pubescens) was introduced in Japan from China in 1736. Now the area of Maozhu bamboo stands accounts for 45% of Japan's bamboo forest total area. Many bamboo species have been introduced and planted in American South Introducing Planta-tion from China since the beginning of this century. Many bamboo species have been introduced in Britain, French, Germany, Dutch from Southeast-Asia. In China, the area of bamboo forest in-creased 0.01 million hm2 through in-troducing bamboo in the North from the South.
［7］ Bamboo Stands Play a Positive Role in Natural Environment
Since bamboo are evergreen, beau-tiful, tall and straight，fearless of cold，simple, clear and dancing in branches and leaves, they receive people's like and are praised highly. In China, Mount Mogan located in Zhejiang, Mount Jinggang located in Jiangxi and Bamboo Sea of Sichuan are the best summer resort. Many parks such as Beijing ZizhuYuan Park, Chendu Wangjianglou Park, Guangzhou Xiaogang Park, bamboo species garden in Huaan and Jianou of Fujian, Anji county and Ten Thousand Bamboo Plantation in Guanning county are all charactered by bamboo.The especially important thing is that bamboo stands play a positive role in conserving soil and water and regulating and controling natural enviroment and climate. So bamboos can be planted at the upper reaches of or along the river, lake and reservoir in order to stabilize and pretect bank or dyke against water's pounding. Good economic benefits can be got by growing zhusun (a kind of mushroom only growing in bamboo stands, namely Dictyophoraindusiata), xianggu, Jew's-ear and medicinal plants such as tianma(Gastrodia elata) in bamboo stands with its fine ecological envi-roment. Bamboo stands are also suitable habitat for those precious animals such as panda and golden monkey.
3. Achievements in Bamboo Research
［1］Achievements Obtained in
Production
Bamboo afforestation has been paid more attention to in the tropical and the subtropical regions since the beginning of the 20th century. The bamboo forest area has been enlarged one times. The artificial bamboo forests have taken the place of 1/3 of primeval bamboo forests. The output of bamboo wood has increased 1-2times. Bamboo used to be mainly used in making farm tools, however, it is now widely used in construction industry, paper-making industry and bamboo-wood processing industry. In Asia paper made from bamboo is 1.5-2.0 million tons every year. Bamboo shoots used to be supplied for peasant families，and now it has been managed as a commodities. Special bamboo-shoot stands have been well and commercially managed.Bamboo culms have been made into various boards such as bamboo plywood, bamboo shaving board and ornamental bamboo board since 1970s. Bamboo with its advantages takes the place of timber, which the lack of timbers has been solved.
［2］In China, Japan and some bamboo- producing countries of Southeast
Asia, much studies have been done on the characteristics of some major economic bamboo species in their own countries like distribution, propaga-tion, afforestation, structure of high-yield bamboo stand and cultivation. Some measures especially in cultivating high-yield bamboo stands have been obtained from studies on maozhu (Phyllostachys pubenscens) in China and Japan, on Dendrocalamus strictus in India, on Dendrocalamopsis oldhami in Bangladesh. In China, much research also has been done on the characteristics of its flower and fruit from which some knowledge have been obtained. Success in afforestation with its seedlings has been obtained on the basis of the necessary knowledge obtained from re-searches. Some new-improved varieties have been cultivated by sexual hy-bridization. Studies on breeding and growing bamboo seedling with its vegetative tissue have been done in Germany, Belgium and other countries. There has been a good beginning in the research on the ecological benefit, stabilization of sands and wind-proof of bamboo forests.
［3］In Taxonomy
As early as Jin Dynasty (A.D.265-420) in China, a book of Bamboo Table written by Dai Kaizhi, in which there were some records about bamboo as follows: "here is a plant called as bamboo, who is neither grass nor tree, neither hardness nor softness, whose minor difference in hollow or solid and major similarity in being have nodes", in which he illuminated the morphological chara- cteristics of bamboo correctly and also gave a description in the mor- phological characteristics, ecological habit, distribution and the value of its utilization of 61 bamboo species. In Song Dynasty (A.D.960-1279), a Buddhist monk called ZanNing wrote a book of Bamboo-shoot Table，in which the morphological characteristics, ecolo- gical habit, distribution and the value of its utilization of 93 bamboo species were described in detail. In Qing Dynasty, the feature mentioned above of 110 bamboo species were de-scribed detailedly in the book of Guangqunfangpu, a book on plants. Natural classification of bamboo was carried out in 1753 when the binomial nomenclature was put forward by Linna, a Swedish scholar. At the beginning of the 20th century，only a few of plant taxonomist have done much work on the preparative classification of several bamboo species, of which a few bamboo species and genera were described. Up to now ，about 1200 bamboo species in 70 genera have been described detailedly in which preparative researches have been done on their ecological and bi-ology habit，however, there are more confusion, omission and repeat in many bamboo species.
［4］Studies have been done on some major economical bamboo species in structure, physical, mechanical and chemical property and fiber's form and the technology in making paper from bamboo in China, Japan and India.
With the technology obtained from research and traditional experience increasing in making plywood, particle board, flooring board, section sheet, bamboo board by joining piece together into pattern and paper, the use of bamboo has been largely widen.
［5］In Literature
Over 8000 theses on bamboo have been published in the 20th century, of which the papers published after 1980 take 70% or so. There are about 800 bamboo patents in China. There are many research re-ports on bamboo in Forestry Journals in India, Viet Nam, Japan, Philippines, and so on.
II.Prospects for Bamboo Trade in
the 21st Century
1. Enlarging the area and output of bamboo forest
［1］The area of bamboo forest in the 20th century is 2.2 million hm2 oc-cupying 1% of that of the forests in the world
The annual output is 1.5-2.0 million tons. It is estimated that the total areas of bamboo forest will be enlarged 2-3 times in the 21st century, about 55-65 million hm2, occupying 2-3% of that of forest in the world. The annual output will be increased 2.5-3.5 times，about 55-65 million tons，taking 5% of that of the timbers in the world. Of which there are 30, 20,10,1 and 1 million hm2 in area and 30, 20, 10, 1 and 1 million tons in the annual bamboo wood in Asia-pacific region; America (primarily South America Africa, Aus-tralia and Europe respectively. About 1000 million hm2 waste mountain and wasteland suitable for the growth of tree and many slashings，on which forest should be regenerated by the means of artificial afforestation or natural regeneration ，especially bamboo forest. As a nice natural re-generation plant, bamboo can provide mankind society with more and finer bamboo products through raising per unit area production. In order to reach the above aim, Scientific cultivation should be applied to natural artificial bamboo forest on the slashings in tropical and subtropical regions.
［2］Replacing Timber with Bamboo Wood with Better Quality
Sustaining development policy should be adopted in managing and utilizing forest resources in the 21st century. As one of the sustaining re-sources, bamboo forest is not only of economic benefit with its bamboo wood but also of ecological benefit with its evergreen. Therefore，bamboo forest should be paid more attention to and be developed. Replacing timber with bamboo with better quality will be a developing tendency in the 21st century. Being deficient in timber resulted from a large number of timber having been depleted in paper-making industry ，bamboo forest used for making paper may be built with bamboo's fast growth, high yield, long and thin fiber in tropical and subtropical regions to solve this problem. Bamboo wood, with its better quality and the techniques obtained in making denaturation materials and plywood, will replace timber. Bamboo stand in bank or slop protection and other protection forests should be advocated to built with its good function in stabilizing soil, pro-tecting bank and conserving soil and water.
2.Widen Bamboo's Use and Raise Its Benefit
［1］In Bamboo Wood Processing Trade
Consuming in timber will reduce by machining, chemical machining and making all kinds of products with bamboo. There will be a more advancement in mechanical machining such as making bamboo pulp and paper, artificial silk and celloluse.
［2］Making Full Use of the Whole Culm
In the past years, much attention only paid to bamboo wood rather than bamboo branch, shoot, leaf, rhizome and root, however, the whole culm will be made full of use in the 21st century.
There will be a development in producing articles of everyday use, handicraft articles and food with bamboo branch, shoot, leaf, rhizome and root. Growth hormone and microelement can be ex-tracted from bamboo's organs to satisfy people's necessary.
［3］Making Use of the Environment in the Bamboo Stands
Precious animals like panda, golden monkey and gorilla can be raised and breeded in bamboo forest. Preciously medicinal herbs and edible vegetable such as tianma (Gastrodia elata) and mushroom (Dictyphora indusiata, only growing bamboo stands) can be grown in bamboo forest. Bamboo will be used in tourism, hotel and play field in tropical region with the characteris-tics of cool and refreshing in bamboo stands.
3. Further Studies on Bamboo
［1］Making an Inventory of Bamboo Resources
In each bamboo-producing country and region，with the checking made in its distribution and the state of its utilization and development, scientific design in developing, using bamboo forest will be made according to their own concrete conditions. The bamboo area will be enlarged in those regions without producing bamboo by introducing bamboo.
［2］Research on the Ecological Effect and Application of Bamboo Stands
Demands on ecological benefit will go beyond that on producing bamboo wood in the 21st century. Therefore，research on bamboo forest's ecological effect will be a key question.Tourism trade will be develop by building bamboo protection forest and scenery forest.Studies on the behavior, breeding and utilization of animal and plant, the effect of stabilizing soil and pro-tecting against pounding and conserving water of bamboo forest, on the ability of bamboo forest against natural dis-astrous and the techniques in con-structing shelter- forest，Besides， on the characteristics and law of bamboo economy.
［3］Researches on Enlarging Bamboo Stand Area and Raising per Unit Yield
Researches on the biological and ecological habit of every bamboo species have been done.Researches on the technology in selecting and breeding good bamboo species adapted to all kinds of ecological conditions and uses; recreation and cultivation of secondary bamboo forest on the slashings in the tropical region ;in afforestation on wastelands suitable for the growth of bamboo under all kinds of ecological conditions ;in construction and high yield structure and cultivation of bamboo forest and prevention and control of bamboo diseases and elimination of pests.
［4］Studies on Widening the Use of Bamboo Forest
In order to replace timber with bamboo with better quality, further studies will be done on the properties of bamboo wood. Studies will be also done on the technology in machining (bamboo artificial board) and chemical ma-chining (making paper, bamboo pulp, bamboo charcoal) of bamboo wood; in processing and the new use of bamboo shoot, branch, leaf, rhizome and root; in producing forage for livestock with bamboo's remainder; in chemical ma-chining of bamboo wood; and in producing artificial silk and glass paper which the demands for natural fiber will be satisfied.
［5］Breeding New-improved Bamboo Species by Taking Advantage of Bio-engineering
Various new-improved bamboos will be breeded for producing timber, shoot and for viewing and admiring. Bamboo species with regular blossom and bearing fruit will be breeded to produce bamboo seeds and satisfy mankind's demands.
［6］Research on Bamboo Forest Bionics
Bamboo forest, with knots in each long and thin bamboo culm, can resist the attacks of strong wind, through which the skyscraper should be followed in the structure of bamboo culm. Bamboo forest is likely to be the mode of skyscraper group in the future. The survival and development of mankind depends on the implement of the policy of sustainable development in utilizing natural re-sources. Bamboos with their renewable characteristics are the best sustain-able resources. So, we prospect with full confidence that the bamboo will be sprung up energetically and bamboo trade will be a popular one and bring new and greater contribution to mankind in the 21st century.
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This text source:《Journal of Bamboo Re-search. 》1999, No.4