Bamboo: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

Bamboo represents one of the world’s highest yielding renewable natural resources and is an important source of non-timber forest products for subsistence use as well as for materials with many commercial and industrial uses. There are over 1500 documented applications of bamboo products, including materials for bridges, construction, furniture, agricultural tools, handicrafts, papers, textiles, boards, edible, and bioenergy applications. With their fast growth rate and rapid propagation, bamboo forests have a high C storage potential, especially when the harvested culms are transformed into durable products and thereby prolonging the C storage. Environmentalists love bamboo for its quick growth and for the fact that it can be harvested without harming the environment. This volume is a rich resource on the role of bamboo in ecological farming and climate change mitigation. Key features of the book include: • Explores the role of bamboo on climate change and environment and ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change • Considers overlooked bamboo biomass resources • Explains carbon capture and storage potential in bamboo • Assesses opportunities for carbon farming and carbon trading in bamboo • Looks at the role on bamboo cultivation on the livelihood of rural populations • Details the soil properties needed for bamboo-based agroforestry systems