What’s worse than our addiction to fossil fuels? Timber. Timber is an amazing product of nature. Making homes and furniture out of wood is a skill and art that is deeply embedded in human cultures. Carpenters and wood craftsmen usually have a profound even spiritual connection to their skill and they can come up with awe inspiring products that connects with nature. But ever since we went industrial with chopping trees we’ve been cutting them down like no tomorrow for decades. Even now with virgin forest cover all over the world at less than 50% we are still cutting them down to fulfil our insatiable appetite for gorgeous hardwood timber.
There is such at thing as ag-timber, timber plantations but they usually grow softwood trees mainly for pulp to make paper and fibreboards. Hardwoods which are the most prized timber are difficult to profit from in plantations. It usually takes more than a decade before the trees can be harvested and even then the diameter of the timber is small. Very few investors are eager to risk such long term returns, which is why a single tree from a virgin forest that is more than 1.5 meters in diameter can fetch close to a million bucks. It just takes minutes to fell the trees and with heavy equipment debarking the trees and trucking them to factories its money in the bank that is as difficult to resist as our appetite for pretty nature in our homes and offices.
We have reached a point where we have to stop all harvesting of virgin forest hardwoods from the temperate and tropical forests. For one thing we need these trees which are also the lungs of our planet to produce oxygen and sink carbon dioxide. The cheapest and most efficient way to reverse our present global climate change crisis is to simply leave nature alone. Allow nature to prosper and we can breathe easy. A global ban on virgin forest timber can help protect forests and help forests grow in range.
However this doesn’t mean we cannot use wood for practical and aesthetic construction. There is a well tested viable replacement for timber–its bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Growing a blistering meter a day the bamboo industry that is estimated at $60 billion a year is starting to gain more traction. There are species of bamboo in South America and Asia that have tensile strength stronger than steel. Laminate floors, plywood, paneling, curtains, paper–bamboo is the way to move forward in the wood industry. The return of investment from bamboo plantations should look very attractive to investors.
Construction bamboo, which are species of bamboo strong enough to use for construction purposes–from scaffolding to support pillar and paneling can be found in Asia and South America. China is the biggest producer of construction bamboo but the South American construction bamboo is the strongest. The interest in growing bamboo commercially is increasing with the awareness of the need to protect remaining virgin forests and in anticipation of greater demand for bamboo construction products Africa is being eyed as a major bamboo producer.
If I had to build a building I would definitely use bamboo all the way. There is a company in Chiang Mai, Thailand that specialises in sustainable construction using only compacted earth and bamboo. Click here to check out Chiang Mai Life Construction. If you are closer to South America google brought up this website: Guadua Bamboo Construction and Architecture.
There is such at thing as ag-timber, timber plantations but they usually grow softwood trees mainly for pulp to make paper and fibreboards. Hardwoods which are the most prized timber are difficult to profit from in plantations. It usually takes more than a decade before the trees can be harvested and even then the diameter of the timber is small. Very few investors are eager to risk such long term returns, which is why a single tree from a virgin forest that is more than 1.5 meters in diameter can fetch close to a million bucks. It just takes minutes to fell the trees and with heavy equipment debarking the trees and trucking them to factories its money in the bank that is as difficult to resist as our appetite for pretty nature in our homes and offices.
We have reached a point where we have to stop all harvesting of virgin forest hardwoods from the temperate and tropical forests. For one thing we need these trees which are also the lungs of our planet to produce oxygen and sink carbon dioxide. The cheapest and most efficient way to reverse our present global climate change crisis is to simply leave nature alone. Allow nature to prosper and we can breathe easy. A global ban on virgin forest timber can help protect forests and help forests grow in range.
However this doesn’t mean we cannot use wood for practical and aesthetic construction. There is a well tested viable replacement for timber–its bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Growing a blistering meter a day the bamboo industry that is estimated at $60 billion a year is starting to gain more traction. There are species of bamboo in South America and Asia that have tensile strength stronger than steel. Laminate floors, plywood, paneling, curtains, paper–bamboo is the way to move forward in the wood industry. The return of investment from bamboo plantations should look very attractive to investors.
Construction bamboo, which are species of bamboo strong enough to use for construction purposes–from scaffolding to support pillar and paneling can be found in Asia and South America. China is the biggest producer of construction bamboo but the South American construction bamboo is the strongest. The interest in growing bamboo commercially is increasing with the awareness of the need to protect remaining virgin forests and in anticipation of greater demand for bamboo construction products Africa is being eyed as a major bamboo producer.
If I had to build a building I would definitely use bamboo all the way. There is a company in Chiang Mai, Thailand that specialises in sustainable construction using only compacted earth and bamboo. Click here to check out Chiang Mai Life Construction. If you are closer to South America google brought up this website: Guadua Bamboo Construction and Architecture.
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