Rethinking Bamboo in 2000 AD

M P Ranjan
Faculty of Industrial Design
National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad, India

This paper has been prepared at the invitation of GTZ/INBAR for the Sino-German
Forestry Cooperation-Hinan: Rehabilitation and Protection of Tropical Forests, Hinan
Provincial Forestry Bureau, Haiku, P.R.China for presentation at the GTZ/INBAR
Workshop on Bamboo and Rattan 2000 from 12 to 21 April 2000 at Hinan and Yunnan
Provinces of China. This paper is now reissued for the Bamboo Boards & Beyond workshop.

Introduction

This paper is divided in two parts the first is speculative and reflects on the emerging
roles of bamboo that can be reinforced and expanded upon in the spheres of utilisation
that have come to our recent attention.

The second part focuses on the status of bamboo research and utilisation in India and
plans that are put up to strengthen the utilisation of bamboo in a wide variety of sectors with
particular reference to the eastern and north-eastern regions of the country where
bamboo is abundantly grown and utilised over several years.

The title of this paper calls for a re-assessment of the use of bamboo in a wide variety of
areas some of which have been areas of focus in the past and some which would
certainly form a major part or take a major part our attention in the near future.
Sustainable development practices are called for in the promotion of the massive
exploitation of the worlds bamboo resources and several new breakthrough applications
are anticipated due to the increased research spend that is taking place around the
world on bamboo related research. This too needs to be regulated and mediated so that
the promises that bamboo holds out for the future are indeed realised in a manner that
is benign to the environment and beneficial to the local peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin
America who have nurtured this resource in all its bio-diversity over the past millennium.
Bamboo has had a glorious past and this can be seen and appreciated in the refined
utilisation patterns of the people of the traditional bamboo growing areas of Asia.
Bamboo is also a future material and needs to be handled with great care and
sensitivity to provide mankind with a truly sustainable natural resource that can be used
for a vast number of applications that have hitherto not been imagined.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 1

Bamboo: The Emerging Global Scenario

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing species of plants known to mankind. It is

extremely versatile and has been traditionally put to a large number of uses and in a
recent re-assessment over 1500 distinct uses have been recorded and this number is
growing each day with new development initiatives taking place around the world. Major
new initiatives seen in recent times are the housing projects in Costa Rica and other
parts of Latin America, industrially produced bamboo flooring from China and bamboo
mat boards in India. Both China and India have evinced considerable Government
interest in the importance of bamboo as an economic and ecologically sustainable
resource and the interest is spreading to various other parts of the world at very a rapid
pace.

The traditional uses include housing and building of fences, agricultural products, tools,
baskets and structures that are used for cattle management and fishing. Traditional
uses also include the use of various parts of bamboo for a variety of interesting
applications. Use of the mature culm and splits for structural applications and the tender
shoots for food, and the use of the leaf as a material for fodder and the use of the
various other parts such as branches and rhizomes for a variety of mechanical and
structural applications show the broad areas of application that have been traditional
and well established in many bamboo cultures of Asia.

Industrial uses of bamboo include the conversion of stems into pulp for paper and in the
production of viscose fibre and in the use of laminated splits in the production of
composite boards and related products. Lamination of handwoven mats into multi-ply
boards combine the craft and industrial processes providing employment to large
numbers of craftspersons in India and these new boards provide a sustainable
substitute for timber based natural wood and plywood products at a reasonable
economic and ecological cost.

Recent research in China has produced an excellent alcoholic beer beverage that uses
the leaves of the bamboo plant as the major production resource. This is a significant
new discovery and the market for these new products is growing very rapidly. New
initiatives in Japan show that bamboo based charcoal may be a major source for new
chemical substances for exotic applications of very high value and the charcoal
compares very favourably with natural coal and lignite for energy applications and
without the associated environmental impact since bamboo charcoal has been reported
to be a much better source of cooking fuel compared to wood fires used by the
economically weaker sections of the populations in Asia and Africa.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 2

Notwithstanding the great number of different uses that the bamboo plant has been put
to in the past by the centuries of exploration and use by the traditional societies of Asia
we may need to seriously re-evaluate these uses and look for the deeper significance of
the reasons for the sustainable application of bamboo know how by the traditional
societies in the regions where the “bamboo culture” is still in evidence and thriving. I
have previously called for a systematic re-examination of these traditional societies in
order to develop a pattern of new understanding of the correlation between the vast
number of bamboo species and the equally bewildering range of applications that have
been invented or discovered by the traditional societies of the bamboo culture economy
of Asia. In my paper titled “Green Design and Bamboo Handicrafts: a Scenario for
Research and Action in the Asian Region” (Bali 1995) where I had outlined the need for
a coordinated strategy for research and listed the possible outcomes of such research
in furthering our understanding of the bamboo plant and its very significant value in the
future. It is heartening to see that since then and in more recent times there has been a
growing interest in bamboo on many fronts and this research is taking place with the
efforts of many committed people who are sharing their findings through a growing
network on the Internet. Such a systematic and sustained examination would reveal the
deep seated understanding of special properties and significant features of individual
species of bamboo that have been exemplified in the particular applications that are
seen in various traditional applications.

This idea is taking strong roots in the aggressive research that is now taking place in the
related fields of traditional medicine due to the economic importance that is now being
perceived for such traditional knowledge with the emergence of a new consciousness
for intellectual property rights through the globalisation of such ideas. Traditional
applications of bamboo in various parts of the world must be studied to discover the
significant properties of bamboo that are known only in a tacit manner to the traditional
communities that use them on a daily basis.

These new breakthroughs and discoveries that we can expect to see in the near future
with the sustained investment into a systematic process of discovery and research
raises many new questions and concerns that should be mediated particularly in the
context of the emerging globalisation of these knowledge resources and the intellectual
property issues that are associated with such a trend. What we are perhaps seeing
today is a veritable gold rush towards the systematic exploitation of the wonder grass
called bamboo in numerous ways that have not been seen in the past and at a scale
that is perhaps unprecedented.

Numerous organisations around the world are making massive investments in bamboo
research and these are in both the social and the commercial sectors of the economy.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 3

The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) is among the world’s
leaders in making investments in bamboo related research. Several societies of
interested professionals and bamboo lovers have formed country and international
networks that have grown quite significantly in recent years and their presence is now
clearly seen on the internet. Country Governments such as in India, China, and several
Asian and Latin American countries are looking at bamboo as a sustainable source for
raw materials to be used in housing and industry.

Both forest based resources and farm based initiatives have been set in motion in the
recent years across a very wide distribution of ecological and cultural regions, each
driven by several pressing local needs or economic opportunities and each initiative is
supported by the economic and political visions of local and international leaders. There
are numerous such initiatives taking shape around the world where bamboo plays a
major role in shaping the development strategies. The Costa Rican housing project and
the laminated bamboo board industry of China are some recent success stories while
the paper and rayon industry in India have established practices for the exploitation of
bamboo on a massive scale in close collaboration with the local forest administrators.
While the traditional local users of the bamboo resources have embedded good
practices of utilisation into their models of resource maximisation, the same cannot be
said of the large industrial producers who have exploited the material on a large scale in
the past. There are several instances of unsustainable exploitation both in the industrial
and in the traditional sectors that teach us lessons that must be the guideing norm for
the future.

The exploding interest in bamboo as a future material for social and economic
development must be tempered with these lessons and those that have been gleaned
from the experiences of other agricultural and forest resources to ensure that bamboo is
a truly renewable material that can be put to the service of human use. The prospects
for the development of such a sustainable pattern is very high. This is dependent on our
being able to garner all the knowledge resources that are presently available and follow
it up with a sustained programme of well directed research that dovetail into a
wholesome programme of field action on many sectors and across many regions.

Bamboo is many things to many people. This reminds me of a famous parable.

“The ancient Indian parable of the ‘Blind men and the Elephant’ applies to the role that
bamboo plays in our lives. The man holding the trunk sees the elephant as a huge
snake and the one touching the legs as a huge tree trunk. The ears seem to be a big
fan and the body a great wall and the tail a slender rope. Each part or attribute evokes a
different image and response. All of these are true, but is only part of the whole picture.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 4

Depending on the need of the individual or the industry user the role of bamboo is
perceived in a similar manner as is the part of the elephant that is closest to each of the
blind men. These perceptions lead to conflicts of interest and in some cases hardened
positions as we have seen in the conflict between the traditional users and the large
paper mills in India and in the wastage of resources by one sector that is not aware of
the value of the waste produced by some processes that form the base raw material of
another industry.”

Bamboo is indeed many things to many people. This is particularly true of the lack of
appreciation that bamboo is a diverse group of plants from one tribe called Bambusae
available in 50 genera and in as many as 1200 different species. The physical,
mechanical, structural, chemical and other characteristics of each of these species vary
to a great extent and these need to be taken into consideration while planning particular
applications. Care should also be taken that the more popular species are not
developed at the cost of the other species since we now know that bio-diversity is a
desirable principle and that future promises new applications may justify the nurturing of
the less popular species as well. Besides the diversity provided by the species we also
need to look at the various parts of the bamboo plant and the range of applications that
these offer for each part and as a whole plant that can be fully utilised in a sensible
manner. Priorities will vary between user groups and this will call for a regulatory
process of collaboration between user groups that can be effectively mediated in an
internet enabled world provided a network is established for this purpose and a better
awareness is developed about the conflicts and issues at stake.

There is a need for the discovery and development of good practices in the cultivation
and exploitation of bamboo resources particularly for large scale uses such as the
industrial applications of paper, rayon, ply-boards, fibre-boards, charcoal and food items
such as bamboo shoots and bamboo beer produced on an industrial scale. Large
mono-cultures of one singe species are fraught with difficulties since bamboo has an
anomalous flowering behaviour that can disrupt an entire eco-system if adequate care is
not taken in maintaining the bio-diversity of a region. New research into bamboo will
surely show us many fascinating aspects of the wonder grass. This makes it all the
more critical that good practices of cultivation and propagation are critically needed to
be understood and practiced on a wide scale. Ever since it has been possible to
produce millions of bamboo plants in test tubes using the latest genetic manipulation
techniques, bamboo can be systematically farmed with a great deal of control on the
selection of the desired characteristics being exercised by the farmers. There is a need
for these bamboo enthusiasts to be sensitive to the principles of natural sustainability
that applies to all of agriculture and forestry practices.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 5

Paper is one application that has stimulated protests from a number of constituents. In
the early enthusiasm for industrial exploitation of bamboo in South India for paper
production, the regions’ bamboo was over exploited and this led to great loss for local
inhabitants and a denudation of the local eco-system. The region is now a disaster zone
that is extremely fragile and in need of special care and attention. The over exploitation
was compounded by neglect from the local inhabitants since they did not see
themselves as having a stake in the whole operation since the forests were managed by
the government authorities. New paper mills have increasingly shifted from timber and
bamboo resources to using agricultural residues for their fibre needs and this has been
supported by consumer groups and eco-activists. Other sources of fibre are recycled
paper and combinations of imported pulp and new mills are being set up to use these
resources from urban centres in India.

Similar pressures can be anticipated where bamboo is being used on a massive scale
for other industrial applications. The stress on the natural bamboo resources due to
runaway demand in international markets will place several eco-systems under threat of
degradation if adequate steps are not taken to manage these resources with
sustainable practices. The pressures on local users and their own dependence on
bamboo will be strained and we need to rethink the models of industrial extraction for all
the high volume applications. Linking the local populations in Asia, Africa and Latin
America to such a resource base based on bamboo cultivation is not only possible but it
may also be a desirable alternative to the industrial contractor model for industrial
exploitation of the forest resources that have been practiced in many places.
Speculating about the future uses of bamboo resources we need not think only of timber
substitution but also see bamboo as an effective substitute for a number of other
mineral and chemical resources as well. Plastics, diesel, carbon and composites of
bamboo fibres may some day replace mined materials with processed materials based
on a sustainable natural resource such as bamboo. Bamboo will then bring a new think
to the value of nature and our dependence on it for sustenance.

What then should be the nature of a farm for growing bamboo? Will we see new ways of
cultivation that increase yields and that can produce materials that meet exacting
specifications? What are the priorities for these new application areas and how do local
people participate in these initiatives?

Status of bamboo in India

Some of these questions are being raised in India over the past few months and the
status of Bamboo in India has been changed substantially as a result of recent events.
In June 1999, on World Environment Day, The Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 6

Vajpayee announced a major initiative of the Government of India (GOI) to a
comprehensive and integrated programme to promote and develop bamboo. Central
Ministries of the GOI are currently in the process of preparing plans and schematic
interventions. State Governments have been similarly asked to submit project proposals
to the Planning Commission.

At the meeting convened by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in August 1999, in
collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and
INBAR in Delhi, a National Bamboo Committee, a multi-disciplinary task force has been
set up to review and advise this sector. The other Ministries that will be looking at
bamboo are the Ministry of Textiles that will focus on Handicrafts, the Ministry of
Industry at industrial applications such as laminated boards and paper, Ministry of Food
Processing into the needs of the fledgling bamboo shoot industry, and the Department
of Science and Technology (DST) will look at the research and development needs
through the chain of laboratories in the bamboo growing areas particularly in the
Northeastern States. The Ministry of Commerce will oversee the export development
and these will focus on handicrafts, manufactured products and processed food for
export markets. At the State Government level too a number of initiatives are under way.

A number of leading Institutions in India have been primed to participate in a

coordinated project framework for the development of design and technology resources
for the bamboo sector. These include the National Institute of Design, The National
Institute of Fashion Technology, The Indian Institutes of Technology in Mumbai and
Guwahati, The Indian Plywood Industries Research Institute and the Regional Research
Laboratories of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the DST
network. The design and technology inputs are being coordinated with the setting up of
Common Facility Centres in the craft concentration centres where some degree of
mechanisation will be provided and demonstrated as part of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Textiles led National Bamboo
Development Project that focuses on the needs of the hand crafts sector. This
programme is based on a multi-disciplinary framework that was developed by the author
in February 1999 that led to the articulation of a series of scenarios based on the
systematic cultivation and utilisation of bamboo resources. The strategy outlined in the
report titled “From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a Sustainable Human
Development Resource for India” calls for an integrated development of knowledge
resources and the sharing of these through numerous structured initiatives with the
active participation of the people, experts and Non Governmental Organisations (NGO).
The use of new media and the internet are anticipated for an active collaboration
between distant partner Institutions and field level participants.

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 7

Institutional supports are being mobilised from leading forest research organisations in
India for sustainable farm based initiativ¡es for the cultivation and establishment of
bamboo resources that are outside the tropical forest areas in India. Such homestead
farms may be the mainstay for the future of reliable and application specific bamboo
resources that can respond to market needs and at the same time meet the need for
adequate bio-diversity across the various regions of India. The Ministry of Environment
and Forests has a group of agencies that can provide inputs needed for these
initiatives. The required research and extension work will be coordinated by MOEF and
the supported institutes are the Indian Council for Forestry Research (ICFRE), the
Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, the Tropical Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur
(TFRI), the Institute of Rain and Moist Deciduous Forest Research, Jorhat (IRMDFR). In
addition to these National level organisations, the State level organisations that have
been very active in bamboo research such as the State Forest Research Institute’s
(SFRI’s) of Arunachal (at Itanagar), of Assam (at Jorhat) and of Kerala (at Peechi) are
being actively involved in the planning and execution of the research and extension
plans.

The utilisation of bamboo for the paper industry has been declining as a percentage of
the total paper production although the total volume of bamboo used has expanded
over the past sixty years. In 1936 the consumption of bamboo by the paper industry had
reached 50 percent of the total production. Till the mid 1950’s the utilisation of bamboo
continued to rise in the face of supply constraints for wood and reached a peak of 74
percent of total production. In 1970 over 95 percent of the paper used wood and
bamboo with bamboo accounting for 56 percent in fibre weight.
Thereafter there has been a steady decline due to supply constraints on both wood and
bamboo and due to the development of non-wood based papers from agricultural
residues and changes in Government policies. The utilisation of bamboo in 1980 was 29
percent, in 1990 it was 27 percent and in 1995 it was 22 percent of the total production.
New paper mills that have been set up recently use recycled paper and imported pulp
for the entire quantity. This is in line with the pressures that are being exerted by
consumer activists and environmentalist for a reduction of wood and bamboo from our
forests and the corresponding changes in Government policies in this area.

There has been a very active debate in India about the need for good practices in the
extraction of natural resources from the forests and on the impact of such economic
activities on local peoples and the forest eco-systems and the wild life that is dependent
on it. Gadgil and Guha in their book “Ecology and Equity: the use and abuse of nature in
contemporary India” discuss the issues in depth and provide many lessons that can be
our guideing principles for the future. The bamboo mat board industry in Kerala and
Meghalaya on the other hand is based on the premise that the industrial exploitation of

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 8

the bamboo resources can provide direct employment to vast numbers of local
craftspersons and many of them women and in the process contribute to the social and
economic development of the entire region in a balanced manner. Local crafts persons
weave mats by hand and these are then laminated into ply-boards at a local factory.
This model can be replicated and new products can be designed to create several such
enclaves of activity where a locally grown resource is converted to new and valuable
products with local participation and value addition. This needs imagination and
research into a number of coordinated directions and this is what the current initiatives
in India are hoping to achieve.

References

1 Geoffrey G Pope, Bamboo and Human Evolution, in Natural History, October

1989, pp 48 - 57
2. M P Ranjan; “Ecology and Design: Lessons from the Bamboo Culture”, keynote
address at the International Bamboo Cultural Forum, Oita November 1991 &
subsequently published in Japanese in Asian Cultures’ Quarterly Magazine AF no. 65,
1992, The Asian Club Foundation, Tokyo. pp 60 - 63
3. Robert Austin, Dana Levy & Koichiro Ueda; Bamboo, John Weatherhill Inc.,
New York, 1985 ( tenth printing ) (1970)
4. Ana Cecilia Chaves & Jorge A Gutierrez; “The Costa Rican Bamboo National
Project”, in Bamboos: Current Research, proceedings of International Bamboo
Workshop, Cochin, 1988, Eds. I V Ramanuja Rao, G Gnanaharan & Cherla B Sastry,
Kerala Forest Research Institute, India and International Development Research
Centre, Canada, 1992. pp 344 - 349
5. Klaus Dunkelberg “Bamboo as a Building Material: Elementary skillful
applications using examples from South East Asia”, in IL 31 Bamboo, Eds. Siegfried
Gab, Heide Drusedau & Jurgen Hennike, Institute fur Leichte Fachentragwerke,
Stuttgart 1985. pp 38 - 263
6. Verrier Elwin; The Art of the North-East Frontier of India, North-East Frontier
Agency, Shillong 1959
7. David Farrelly; The Book of Bamboo, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, USA,
1984
8. Madhav Gadgil & Ramachandra Guha; This Fissured Land: An Ecological
History of India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1992
9. Chen Guisheng; “Bamboo Plywood: A New Product of Structural Material with
High Strength Properties”, in Recent Research on Bamboo, proceedings of International
Bamboo Workshop, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, 1985, Eds. A N Rao, G
Dhanarajan & C B Sastry, Chinese Acadamy of Forestry, People’s Republic of China
and International Development Research Centre, Canada, 1985. pp 337 - 338

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 9

10. Jules Janssen; “The Mechanical Properties of Bamboo Used in Construction”, in
Bamboo
Research in Asia, proceedings of workshop, Singapore, 1980, Eds. Guilles Lessard and
Amy Chouinard, International Development Research Centre, Canada and the
International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, Canada, 1980, pp 173 - 188
11. Oscar Hidalgo Lopez; “Designing with bamboo in Latin America”, in IL 31
Bamboo, Eds.Siegfried Gab, Heide Drusedau & Jurgen Hennike, Institute fur
LeichteFachentragwerke, Stuttgart 1985. pp 288 - 91
12. F A McLure; The Bamboos: A Fresh Perspective, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Mass., USA, 1966
13. M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer & Ghanshyam Pandya; Bamboo and Cane Crafts of
Northeast India, Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, New Delhi, 1986
14. M P Ranjan; “Structure of Bamboo Baskets”, in IL 31 Bamboo, Eds. Siegfried
Gab, Heide Drusedau & Jurgen Hennike, Institute fur Leichte Fachentragwerke,
Stuttgart 1985. pp 356 - 67
15. I V Ramanuja Rao & I Usha Rao, “Tissue Culture Approaches to Mass-
propagation and Genetic Improvement of Bamboos”, in Bamboos: Current Research,
proceedings of International Bamboo Workshop, Cochin, 1988, Eds. I V Ramanuja Rao,
G Gnanaharan & Cherla B Sastry, Kerala Forest Research Institute, India and Interna-
tional Development Research Centre, Canada, 1992. pp 151 - 157
16. Aditi Shirali;Textile and Bamboo Crafts of the Northeastern Region, National
Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, 1983
17. Songkram Thammincha; “Role of Bamboo in Rural Development and Socio-
economics: A case study in Thailand”, in Recent Research on Bamboo, proceedings of
International Bamboo Workshop, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, 1985, Eds. A
N Rao, G Dhanarajan & C B Sastry, Chinese Acadamy of Forestry, People’s Republic of
China and International Development Research Centre, Canada, 1985. pp 359 - 365
18. M P Ranjan, “Bamboo as a Designer Material: Its Properties and Manipulation”, in
Bam-boo Craft Design: Proceedings of the Jagruti workshop, Eds. A G Rao and
Madhavi Koli, Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay 1994
19. Ohrnberger, D. & Gorrings, J.(Eds.), “The Bamboos Of The World,” International
Book Distributors, Dehra Dun, 1983-87
20. CeCoCo Chuo Boeki Goshi Kaisha, “Product Catalogue for Bamboo Processing
Machin-ery,” CeCoCo Chuo Boeki Goshi Kaisha, P O Box 8, Ibaraki City, Osaka, Japan,
nd.
21. Bani Singh, “Cane & Bamboo Furniture Development” National Institute of
Design, Ahmedabad. (Unpublished thesis) 1987.
22. Janak Mistry, “Knock- down bamboo office partition system for northeast India,”
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. (Unpublished thesis) 1988.
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Institut Fur Leichte Flachentragwerke (IL), Stuttgart, 1985
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Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. (Unpublished Report) 1989.
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“Bamboo”, New York/Tokyo 1972.
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Development Resource”, UNDP, New Delhi, February 1999
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the Asian Region” in Proceedings of the Vth International Bamboo Workshop, Bali 1995
- INBAR Technical Report No.8-Bamboo, People and Environment Eds. I.V.Ramanuja
Rao and Cherla B. Sastry, INBAR, New Delhi, 1996
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Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1995
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INBAR, Beijing 1998
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Bamboos, Prosea Foundation, 1995
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Compendiuim, Kerala Forest research Institute and INBAR, Beijing, 1998
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Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, Koln, 1998
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report for UNDP/APCTT sponsored project, APCTT/UNDP, New Delhi, December 1999

Websites

1. <http://www.hindpaper.com/>
Home page of the Hindustan Paper Corporation, a major user of bamboo in India at
some of its mills. Other details are provided under the URl’s listed below.
http://www.hindpaper.com/nppc.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/cpm.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/hnl.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/environment.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/forest.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/profile.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/locations.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/npm.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/mnpm.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/hnl.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/cpm.htm

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 11

http://www.hindpaper.com/nppc.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/depot.htm
http://www.hindpaper.com/technical.htm

2. <http://www.ramanewsprint.com/>
Home page of Rama Newsprints Ltd a new paper mill that uses only recycled paper and
imported pulp.

3. <http://www.earthisland.org/paper/bamboo2.html>
Bamboo Paper: Not Forest-Friendly by Aaron G. Lehmer

4. <http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/WWT_Biotechnology.html>
Other issues relating to the sustainable uses of bamboo are discussed at the URL’s
listed below. West Wind Technology is a commercial provider of Biotechnology services
for bamboo propagation.
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/bamboo_paper.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/bamboo_food.htm
lhttp://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Products.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Wood_Products.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Charcoal.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Biomass.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Bioremediation.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/Bamboo_Composites.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/wwt.html
http://esi.athenstn.com/wwt/WWT_Biotechnology.html

5. China Bamboo Flooring: Some sites for bamboo flooring

<http://www.china-bambooflooring.com/aboutus.htm>
<http://www.linanwindow.com/craft/fence.htm>
<http://www.china-qingfeng.com/>

6. Other Bamboo Flooring sites

http://www.bambooaccents.com/
http://www.bambooflooringhawaii.com/
http://www.bamboo-flooring.com/
http://www.bamboofloor.net
http://www.plyboo-america.com
http://www.timbergrass.com

Bamboo Boards & Beyond - NID Nov 2000 12