The Nepal Weekly 
February 18, 2025
With aims to establish instrumental value of bamboo in Nepal’s green economy, the First National Bamboo Conference-2025 is all set to take place from February 27 to March 1 in Diktel, Khotang in Nepal’s Koshi Province.
Former minister for Science and Technology Er. Ganesh Shah has been leading at the central role of the event and preparations since its conceptualization.
The event, organised collaboratively by the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE), the Forest Research and Training Centre (FRTC), and Green Bamboo Creation Pvt. Ltd., will focus on raising awareness, promoting sustainable bamboo cultivation, and mobilizing its economic potential.
Under the theme “Bamboo: Growing Green Economy, Sustaining Our Future,” the conference will bring together stakeholders from diverse sectors to explore bamboo’s multifaceted applications for ecological and economic growth.
Bamboo is known as one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Its growth rate ranges from 30 cm to 100 cm per day. It attains its maximum size in 60-90 days after shoot sprouting and can be commercially harvested after 3 to 6 years. Bamboo multiplication is very easy and it grows on poor soils, which would not be suitable for many agricultural crops.
There are about 23 genera (24% of the world) and 81 species of bamboo (5.2% of the world) found in almost all parts of Nepal. The total bamboo coverage area in Nepal is estimated to be around 63,000 hectares, out of which 60 percent is estimated to be in natural forests. Nepal’s total annual bamboo production is 3.01 million culms covering 62,891 hectors of land while it is more common in the eastern region of the country.
Out of the total annual production of bamboo culms, it is estimated that around 600,000–700,000 culms of bamboo are traded over the commercial domestic market in a year. Out of the remaining 2.4 million culms, 1.9 million culms are consumed locally and rest (0.5 million culms) are traded to India. An estimated 102 metric tons of bamboo shoots are also produced and sold in Nepal annually, all of which are consumed locally.
Bamboo is useful in many aspects. Conservation of soil erosion, environmental protection, income generation to the farmers are the main features while its religious value is also appreciated. As a raw material, bamboo is used for making attractive and eco-friendly furniture besides using for construction works and building bridges in the rural areas. Moreover, bamboo being a versatile natural gift it is useful in constructing houses for low income people to keep safe them from earthquake, rain and heat and cold.
According to an information availed by Habitat for Humanity International, majority of Nepalese live in villages and are dependent on agriculture, but severe floods, landslides and earthquakes threaten homes, fields and livestock. Additionally, Habitat’s information emphasis that the lack of employment and poverty has forced one in 10 of the rural population to migrate to the capital Kathmandu and other municipalities.
Bamboo has a great potential to solve the scarcity of sustainable building materials for high-end and affordable buildings in both urban as well as rural areas. The modern days building materials, which mainly constitute wood, concrete and steel are not consider sustainable materials because they are associated with high-embodied energy. Additionally, bamboo matures in three years, and if they are not used within 10 years, they lose their utility.
Bamboo is lighter in density than steel, but it can be as strong as mild steel in terms of strength. In the last 10 years, there has been emerging interest in the field of bamboo housing in many parts of the globe. Nepal can enhance its existing skill so that it can materialize on the growing global material for this versatile material.
With adding some craftsmanship, almost all the components of a house including walls, partitions, floors, roof, doors, windows, and stairs can be built with bamboo.
Bamboo prefabricated quality houses are relatively affordable compared to bricks or stone made concrete houses. They are easy to construct, easily detachable and transferable from one place to another and they have good insulation characteristics.
These houses are environment friendly and have better earthquakes resistance. According to a lab test conducted in India supported by DFID has shown that bamboo house can easily stand 7-rector scale of earthquake.
Use of bamboo in house construction is a sustainable means as bamboo helps to prevent deforestation. The experience from the INBAR/TNC bamboo housing project revealed that a 30 square meter bamboo house would save about 10 cubic meter of timber. In more general terms: building one small two-room house with bamboo rather than wood could already save at least one big mature tree. A research conducted in Costa Rica revealed that only 70 hectares of bamboo plantation are sufficient to build 1,000 bamboo houses per year. If these houses were built with timber, 500 hectares of natural forests would be destroyed every year.
Bamboo processing and production consumes less energy compared to other building materials. It requires only 30 MJ/m3 per N/mm2 compared to concrete, steel and timber, that require 240, 500 and 80 MJ/m3 per n/mm2 respectively. Studies show that processing of bamboo requires only 1/8 of the energy that concrete needs to create a building material of the same capacity. In comparison to steel bamboo needs only 1/50 the amount of energy for processing. Bamboo has a zero waste as all the parts of the bamboo can be utilized efficiently. Bamboo dust has been used for making particleboard and insulation brick.
Such houses would contribute to the society by providing affordable but quality prefabricated bamboo houses to poor and homeless people. Construction of such houses takes a minimum of one month so as it may take a maximum of three months. As such, this local based technology can be effectively used for relief purposes in the times of natural disaster.
Moreover, bamboo in Nepal is recognised as bamboo is a poor people’s timber and living in a bamboo house is a social shame. Thus, benefits and features of bamboo should be disseminated well to users so as they should feel comfortable in the bamboo houses. So as bamboo has to be used extensively not only for affordable housing but also for high-end structures with improved engineering designs in order to raise its image and to change people’s perception.
Recently Government of Nepal had endorsed building code with ample space for bamboo based constructions which is expected to extend support to wider use of bamboo in Nepal. This is also to note that wider use of bamboo will generate more employment opportunity and economic mobilisation. (By Purna N. Ranjitkar)
