Adopt a Bamboo
… and watch it grow!
A New Approach to Reforestation!
There are a lot of organizations offering online reforestation programs, even large airline companies are now giving you the option to compensate your CO2 footprint when buying a ticket, BUT do you actually know what happens with those collected funds? Except from the automated thank you mail, what proof did you get that trees were actually planted? The fact that such companies often lack transparency made me skeptical about their real motives. It got me thinking; isn’t there a better and more transparent way to approach reforestation so that you can actually see what’s happening with your money?
That’s how we came up with the idea to Adopt a Bamboo. Apart from our passion for bamboo and the many benefits it offers, one big difference between bamboo and trees is that you can literally see bamboo grow. It is precisely this characteristic that we want to use to your benefit!
If you decide to join our Adopt a Bamboo reforestation project, you will receive a digital certificate stating your name and the amount of CO2 compensated. Your name will also be published on a dedicated page on our website where every bamboo planted at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo has its own ID. For all bamboos planted we publish photo updates of their growth development every 6 months. Each bamboo is linked to a unique donor.
For companies or business we offer additional features that highlight your support in our reforestation program and help build your social and environmental credentials.
With your donation, you can directly contributed to reforest degraded land, compensate your carbon footprint, and create employment for local workers who plant and maintain your bamboo.
As a donor to the Adopt a Bamboo reforestation project, you also receive an open invitation to visit us at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo in Colombia, and to enjoy a guided tour where you can learn about our activities. Planting bamboo is one thing but maintaining and monitoring every clump is a work of passion, we are more than happy to share that with you!
This bamboo shoot is 3 months old!
Photo by: Stéphane Schröder © www.guaduabamboo.com
Why Bamboo?
Guadua bamboo forest at night
Photo by: Stéphane Schröder © www.guaduabamboo.com
By now, everyone knows that planting trees and restoring the soil is crucial in the fight against global warming. But trees grow slow, and bamboo grows very quick (some species up to a meter per day).
Bamboo has amazing properties that help the environment, but it is especially interesting for reforestation projects because it can produce sustainable timber in a relatively short period of time.
Since bamboo is a grass, mature stems can be harvested on an annual basis without having to clear fell the forest. This means only 25% of the bamboo forest gets harvested with new shoots emerging just a few months later. Similar to mowing your lawn, bamboo will continue to grow! If bamboo replaces the use of tropical wood, then it will also reduce the pressure on tropical rainforests.
Facts about Bamboo
Although we focus on bamboo reforestation, we want to make it absolutely clear that all reforestation efforts, wether with tropical or temperate tree species or bamboo are massively important. The reason why we chose to reforest with bamboo is because Guadua angustifolia is a native forestry species in Colombia.
Due to centuries of deforestation, massive sugar cane plantations, and other industrial and domestic farming, many natural Guadua forests have disappeared. Our project aims to reestablish some of these native bamboo forests and at the same time promote the sustainable exploitation of bamboo which actually results in healthier forests than unexploited bamboo forests.
How does Bamboo Grow?
Pictures say more than a thousand words, so below you can see how a small bamboo plant develops into a large bamboo clump. The species show here is Guadua sp. which originates from Brazil. The important factor to understand is that bamboo continuously produces larger culms during its initial growing phase, until it reaches its maximum diameter culms defined by the species. As can be seen in the last image, the bamboo clump consists of culms that all have the same average diameter and height. This is the point where a bamboo clump is considered mature (for Guadua this is usually 7 years after planting).
Want to learn more? See our detailed article about the growing habits of Guadua Bamboo
Just planted
4 months
8 months
1 year and 1 month
1 year and 3 months
1 year and 10 months
2 years and 6 months
2 years and 7 months
6 years and 6 months
Who’s Behind Adopt a Bamboo?
Adopt a Bamboo is a private initiative of Stéphane Schröder, CEO of Guadua Bamboo, Belgian bamboo expert, and former co-founder and co-owner of Bamboo Import Europe.
Stéphane has been growing and working with bamboo in Central and South America since 2007. He has successfully helped and taught local farmers and artisans how to produce value added bamboo products for the national and international markets in a sustainable manner that benefits both people and planet.
My bamboo journey began in Costa Rica in 2007 where I discovered about the amazing properties, strength and versatility of a locally grown bamboo species called Guadua angustifolia. In Costa Rica, Guadua bamboo was used in countless furniture and architectural applications, and I couldn’t understand why this amazing resource wasn’t more utilized in the Western world as a sustainable alternative to tropical hardwoods.
While studying and reading about bamboo, I found out that information about Guadua was very limited back then. For me this was a perfect opportunity to raise awareness for Guadua around the world and to build this website that would promote the use of bamboo in all its aspects, from cultivation and preservation to utilization.
After 7 years of working with bamboo in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Colombia, I got the opportunity to move back to Europe, and partner with a Dutch start up company called Bamboo Import Europe. Together with two partners, we began to introduce South American bamboo construction materials into the European market. Within the same year, in 2014, we were able to supply Guadua bamboo poles for several public projects in The Netherlands. As a result of this exposure more and more European architects, engineers and even private individuals got interested in building with bamboo. Fast forward to 2020, and our small start up company had grown into an important bamboo importer, distributor and retailer in Europe with a team of very talented co-workers.
The awareness and market for bamboo was created, but what about the supply? Now that the company, and the demand for bamboo, had grown exponentially, I felt that it was the appropriate time to retire from my position in the company and return to my roots in South America with a new mission; reforestation, conservation and professionally managed bamboo forestry.
Why do we need your help?
Global warming is a topic of great concern and outrage, mostly among younger generations in developed countries. Frustration grows as governments act too slow on implementing solutions. However, solving the problem of global warming is one of shared responsibility. In order to push governments and businesses into the right direction, we as consumers have to demand change by no longer buying products that are harmful for the environment. If we want to stop the deforestation of tropical rainforests, then we must stop buying tropical hardwood products. The problem of deforestation is of course far more complex as forests are clear cut for a wide variety of reasons such as agricultural expansion, cattle breeding, mining, oil extraction and infrastructure development, but timber extraction definitely remains one of the main reasons for deforestation.
In our current consumption economy, where virtually any product can be ordered by just a few clicks, many consumers aren’t aware anymore where those products come from, or how they are made. To some it appears that things are just created out of thin air with no human or environmental cost attached to them whatsoever. The truth is, even the most basic resources, often cost more to produce than what wholesale buyers are offering to pay. As a consequence, small farmers and producers are not able to live from their crops anymore which leads to poverty, social unrest and illegal practices.
Planting bamboo at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo
Photo by: Stéphane Schröder © www.guaduabamboo.com
One way to solve these environmental and social problems is to make reforestation economically viable. I found that there is a big misconception to why small farmers deforest. The general public often sees them as “the bad guys”, but in reality deforestation is often a result of ignorance or an urge to survive. A common argument you would hear among farmers is that they can’t eat trees to survive. So, if nobody comes up with alternatives or show the economical potentials of farming bamboo, then how could we expect a change in behavior?
With the above being said, there are enthousiasts and non-profit organizations that try to promote the cultivation of bamboo among local farmers. The problem however, is the lack of successful references. Talking the talk is very different then walking the walk. Convincing a farmer to invest his time and money into a crop he is not familiar with, or that has no established market, is virtually impossible. Therefore, it is our mission to lead by example and to show through Adopt a Bamboo that it is possible to survive financially while growing and maintaining new forests. If our project proves successful, then the next step is to expand our concept nationwide.
Hacienda Guadua Bamboo
Our pilot project starts at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo, located in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. This former cattle ranch is primary consisting of grass land with patches of eroded hill sides and compacted soils. It is the perfect opportunity to show how we can transform degraded land into a lush forest with native bamboo and tree species that naturally capture tons of CO2, that restore soils, and that attracts native fauna and flora.
The Benefits of Privately Owned Forests
One could argue that privately owned forest don’t benefit the public, while in fact the opposite is true. Family forests are among the world's healthiest and best managed forests in the world. Well maintained forests are far more productive than unmanaged forests in terms of providing clean water, clean air, biodiversity, and an endless supply of sustainable timber.
Government owned forest, on the other hand, always depend on the mercy of current legislations. Are budgets available to protect national forests or will parts of the forest be sacrificed for quick financial gains? All depend on which political party is currently in power. Fact is that a single term is enough for a government to cause incredible damage to the environment for many decades or centuries to come. For that reason we prefer to reforest privately owned (degraded) land only, in alliance with local communities.
Follow our Planting Activities
How can you help?
First of all by supporting and sharing our bamboo reforestation project on social media. Every single like and share is much appreciated!
With a donation of just $5 we are able to grow new bamboo seedlings for our reforestation program.
If you love our initiative and want to help our reforestation efforts even more, then Adopting a Bamboo is the way to go!
$5
Donate a Seedling
What do you get in return?
Our eternal gratitude!
With your donation we are able to grow bamboo seedlings in our nursery.
$25
Adopt a Bamboo Clump
Personal
What do you get in return?
A digital certificate with your name, CO2 offset amount and GPS location.
A recently planted bamboo will be assigned to you.
A dedicated webpage with your adopted bamboo.
Photos updates every 6 months.
Tip: Adopting a Bamboo for a friend or family member is a unique, meaningful and long lasting gift. You can even select the date when we should send the gift certificate.
$250
Adopt a Bamboo Clump
Business
What do you get in return?
A digital certificate with your company name, CO2 offset amount and GPS location.
Option to pick your favorite bamboo species to adopt from a list of available species.
A dedicated webpage about your adopted bamboo.
Label with your company name attached to the bamboo.
Photos updates every 6 months.
Your company name linked to your website.
Your company logo featured on our website.
FAQs
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With one single payment you are adopting a bamboo for life! However, a bamboo clump is considered mature/established 7 years after planting. This means that after 7 years a clump, will have individual stems that have reached their maximum diameters. At this point we will no longer update your page every 6 months as growth will be less dramatic as in the first 7 years. The dedicated page of you bamboo will still be updated with new photos each year and high resolution photos remain available on request.
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We have detailed scientific studies on the CO2 uptake of Guadua Bamboo at every stage of their development. The total accumulated CO2 uptake of 1 Guadua clump from planting up to year 7 (when the clump is considered mature) is on average 1978,5 kg. Our certificate will state that you have contributed to offsetting a total of 2 tons in the next 7 years. Since your bamboo will continue to grow, it will also continue to sequester CO2, but we are not in the business to trade or sell carbon credits, therefore our certificates cannot be sold and should be appreciated as a batch of honor rather than a financial instrument.
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All donations from the Adopt a Bamboo Reforestation program are stored into a separate account. These funds are used to pay local farmers for growing bamboo on their land and to help them generate income during the first 7 years of initial growth and development. We also provide the planting materials, labor and consultancy free of charge to the land owner.
After 7 years, the company Guadua Bamboo SAS offers to buy the annual harvest (only mature stems which consists of about 20% of the total plantation) on a yearly basis. In other words, Adopt a Bamboo supports farm owners to re-establish native bamboo forests on deforested land, and to create a sustainable income and a healthy eco system for the future.
Non of the donations are used to fund the planting activities at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo. We do use the planted bamboos at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo as a proof of concept to get the ball rolling.
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As a company you are best off with our Business package as you will get a lot of exposure (on-and offline). You could encourage you customers to donate small amounts, and pool the funds in order to purchase a business package. If you have other creative ways to support our reforestation project, than by any means feel free to send us and email.
What People Are Saying:
“This is amazing! I can’t wait to see the pictures of the bamboo being planted from the bamboo clump that I just donated. I would love to see your plantation, too bad it’s a long way from California, but a minimal distance to help with your reforestation efforts. Bravo!”
Countries that
Adopted a Bamboo
We are grateful for all the support we have received for our bamboo reforestation initiative in Colombia. It just proves that many individuals and business from around the world care about a healthier planet. Let’s continue to make a difference by planting more bamboo!
Our Partners
These companies already adopted a bamboo at Hacienda Guadua Bamboo.
