A bamboo dealer for over 10 years, Xie Zhiguang, a 48-year-old local of Anji, a county-level city in Zhejiang Province, buys tons of bamboo each month and sells it to local bamboo processing plants.

There are over 50 such plants in Anji, a mountainous area located a four-hour drive from Shanghai. Approximately 70 percent of Anji is covered with forest, bamboo lands making up the majority. The annual output volume of bamboo in Anji is higher than that in any other place in China, leading to its reputation as the Kingdom of Bamboo.

"Millions of tons of bamboo are produced in Anji each year," Xie told Beijing Review. "Bamboo plantation and processing is a pillar industry here."

Born in China

A native plant of China, bamboo mainly grows in regions south of the Yangtze River. In traditional Chinese culture, bamboo is a symbol of moral integrity, loyalty, resilience and modesty, making it a frequent theme of Chinese poetry and paintings.

The bamboo forest creates unique vistas around Anji. The city is the filming location of the Oscar-winning movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The bamboo scenery, along with other bamboo-related attractions, including a bamboo museum, has created unique tourism resources for the locals.

Bamboo is not only pretty and elegant, and Xie explained that it is used for much more than just as an alternative to wood. It is the staple food for giant pandas, and bamboo shoots, normally harvested in winter and spring, are regularly consumed by humans.

The stem is the most utilized part of the plant. It can be made into handicrafts, and daily necessities including chopsticks and chopping boards. The strength of the stems makes them an ideal material for furniture and construction. Bamboo fiber can be made into tissue and paper, and even the leaves can be turned into chemical products.

What makes all the functions even more valuable is the speed at which bamboo grows and regenerates. "During peak times, bamboo can grow one meter a day and over 20 meters within weeks," he said. "It takes years to grow wood, whereas the growth cycle of bamboo is much shorter."

This advantage allows farmers to make money faster by growing bamboo than by growing wood. In the battle against extreme poverty in China, bamboo has played a supporting role. "The approach of farming bamboo to alleviate poverty has been successful in China," according to the website of the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization, an intergovernmental development organization.

Wu Zaimeng, a resident in Pingxi Village of Tianlin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has grown bamboo shoots for over 20 years and he revealed that he can earn 70,000 yuan ($11,000) a year now, almost doubling his income in the past years thanks to the local government's efforts to upgrade the bamboo shoot industry.

The county introduced processing factories for bamboo shoots, developed a series of products such as canned and pickled bamboo shoots. The local farmers can directly sell fresh bamboo shoots to the factory instead of randomly looking for buyers in the market. New planting skills were also introduced to improve the output of low-yield bamboo groves.

Bamboo weaving techniques, some of which are listed as intangible cultural heritage, also contributed to poverty reduction. A number of bamboo-weaving skill training centers were set up in impoverished areas for inheritors of the craft to teach rural people, especially women, to transform bamboo into exquisite items. With such items going to domestic and overseas markets, the bamboo weaving business has even become the pillar for some of these regions.

The grand plan(t)

Figures from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) show that China has more than 6.67 million hectares of bamboo forests, the largest in the world and the annual output value is nearly 320 billion yuan ($49.6 billion).

Today, the country is expanding the scope of the bamboo industry. A document released in early December 2021, by the NFGA on accelerating the development of bamboo industry, states that the total output value of China's bamboo industry will exceed 700 billion yuan ($110 billion) by 2025 and will top 1 trillion yuan ($157.29 billion) by 2035.

The document added that China will protect and cultivate high-quality bamboo forest resources and build a modern bamboo industry system as well as a beautiful rural bamboo landscape.

China has long been promoting the ecological benefits of bamboo. As of 2008, the country launched the world's first bamboo carbon sequestration project and has promoted such initiatives for inclusion in global carbon markets.

The ecological value of bamboo forest has been further highlighted in recent years. Yang Zhongyong, a resident in Anji who has 530 hectares of bamboo forest under contract, has benefited from the carbon market because of his bamboo forest.

According to the estimation of China's national carbon market in Shanghai, Yang's forest can reduce over 7,045 tons of carbon dioxide emissions under his contract period.

He used the credits as collateral to secure a bank loan of more than 370,000 yuan ($57,831) in July last year.

"Bamboo is a sustainable, green resource," said Wang Jingxin, a professor with the Land Academy for National Development at Zhejiang University. "Such measures will help to speed up the formation of China's bamboo forest carbon industry."

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