Taiwan Today

Restoration of bamboo groves is underway to expand the plant’s role in Taiwan’s sustainable future.

The bucolic Luoshan Village in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County welcomes visitors who come to trek to its imposing waterfall and inspect its mud volcano, but this year, it is receiving global innovators who have come to learn about the part it has played in the successful renaissance of the bamboo industry. For the first time this year, the World Bamboo Congress is being held in Taiwan with support from the Ministry of Agriculture’s (MOA) Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (FANCA). The event is taking place at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, home to Taiwan Bamboo Society, in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City and National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, where new ways to utilize bamboo are developed, in the central county of Nantou. Each venue will simultaneously take part in the national Bamboo Expo spanning five cities and counties starting in mid-March.

  Visitors to Luoshan, one of the expo locations, will learn about the domestic movement to renew bamboo groves that began in 2017. With subsidies from FANCA, Fuli Farmers’ Association transformed ten hectares of forest by clearing unusable old growth to make way for new shoots. “Luoshan is blessed with rich bamboo forests,” said Chang Su-hua (張素華), director general of the association. “It would be a shame to let their bounty go to waste.”

According to FANCA, about 8 percent of Taiwan’s land area is covered by bamboo. Of those 180,000 hectares, 77,000 have potential for commercial use. In 2021 Taiwan utilized just 106 hectares to produce 530,000 bamboo poles. Thanks to FANCA’s Reconstruction of Bamboo Industry Development Project (RBIDP),  the total land area harvested is expected to reach 2,000 hectares by 2025.

  Chang Wei-i (張偉顗), director of FANCA’s Forestry and Forest Industry Division, noted that before manufacturing transitioned to plastic in the later 20th century, Taiwan logged more than 17 million bamboo poles annually, and the plant is now regaining attention as the world seeks to phase out fossil fuel-derived materials. Groves capture and store carbon dioxide from the air, with superior carbon sink performance compared to trees. For these reasons, Chang sees reviving the bamboo industry as critical to advancing U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in Taiwan.

Natural Source
Among the RBIDP’s main goals is incentivizing bamboo logging. Among its tools is an MOA payment of NT$30,000 (US$1,000) per hectare of bamboo cut, with landowners eligible to collect once every four years. Quadrennial harvests are ideal because they maximize bamboo’s benefits to its environment while allowing for its industrial use. After seven years culms are considered too old for processing, and their ability to absorb carbon and prevent soil erosion also weakens with age.

“Policies that didn’t differentiate between types of forested land were previously a big barrier to bamboo production,” said Zheng Yang-yi (鄭揚宜), who is in charge of the regional revitalization subplan under National Central University’s social responsibility program implemented in the northern city of Taoyuan’s Fuxing District. “It’s great to see solutions to that problem.” When the program launched in 2020, participants campaigned for selective logging. Now it has shifted to advising loggers and facilitating communication with government agencies to better identify and address challenges to bamboo forest regeneration.

Companies like Yusun Bamboo report that the MOA measure has made it easier to find landowners willing to have their bamboo cut. Established in 2015 by Lin Chih-ren (林志仁) and Li Li-ru (李俐汝) in Fuxing, Yusun harvests bamboo growing throughout land in the heavily forested district. It has also been commissioned by FANCA to clear old growth in nationally owned bamboo forests in the area as part of government revitalization of the industry. Employing a team of 20 loggers, Yusun is one of the country’s major suppliers of cut culms. “Production won’t take off if there isn’t sufficient supply or demand,” Li said. “We’re working to raise both.”
  The latter concern led the pair to found Taiwan Makino Bamboo (TMB) in 2017. Named after the bamboo species that grows in Fuxing and other parts of northern Taiwan, the nongovernmental organization educates the public via hands-on classes and field trips to bamboo forests to foster appreciation for the plant and awareness of potential for bamboo products. “We take people to restored groves thronging with young shoots and explain how periodic logging helps the landscape and increases carbon sequestration,” she added.

Industry Upgrade
Regular logging requires a stable workforce and dedicated infrastructure such as on-site yards where freshly harvested culms can be stored, cut and graded. At present bamboo from around Taiwan is transported and sold whole to processors primarily located in central Nantou County’s Zhushan Township. However, if companies have covered space to undertake preliminary cutting before sending the raw material to market, they have a better chance of selling all sections of the plant, each of which has specific uses. “On rainy days when loggers don’t go into the forest, they can take care of tasks in the yard,” Yusun’s Lin said. “A more stable work schedule also helps companies attract and retain workers.”
  Under RBIDP, FANCA is now helping Yusun’s founders and Tainan City-based Longci Farmers’ Association in southern Taiwan construct storage yards and offers the same assistance to any organization or local government that requests it. The agency has plans to facilitate the construction of recycling facilities at each site clearing old bamboo, which can be made into biofuel pellets or charcoal fertilizer. Revenue brought in by recycled bamboo products is expected to further stimulate the sector’s growth.

Additionally, FANCA is introducing new machines to make cutting and collecting bamboo in mountainous terrain more efficient. In 2022 it subsidized National Pingtung University of Science’s purchase of three different types of machine for harvesting thorny bamboo, a variety that thrives in the southern region. With the new equipment, loggers can collect 273 culms per day, up from 32 previously.

  “Advanced machinery is essential for rapidly clearing and regrowing bamboo forest nationwide,” Lin said. The swift uptake of such machinery is ensured by training offered by organizations like Taiwan-based Chinese Forest Products Association. The FANCA-subsidized program taught Lin how to operate an imported bamboo gathering device that can move harvested culms over long distances with cables. He intends to lease the machine from the agency for work at remote sites.

With such robust government support, Lin sees a bright future for Yusun and the industry. He and Li intend to showcase their achievements at the Bamboo Expo, where TMB is setting up a booth at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. “Taiwan has great bamboo resources and a long tradition of bamboo craftwork,” FANCA’s Chang said. “The global event is a unique window on what Taiwan has done to rejuvenate our bamboo forests so we can make the most of them.” 
 

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw