MAKINGplacedness TASMANIA: IN CONCLUSION

It is increasingly evident that BAMBOO in Australia, and by extension Tasmania, as a component in a place's CULTURALlandscape is misunderstood.

Arguably this is to do with Australia's colonial and settler histories that have been until relatively recently driven by Eurocentric sensibilities and sensitivities. However, currently Australia's multicultural reality is much more diverse and it is diversifying.

September 18 World Bamboo Day, is celebrated on this day all over the world, and it is an initiative created in 2009 by the World Bamboo Organization (WBO) to raise awareness about the incredible benefits bamboo has to offer the world. This day emphasises bamboo's role as a sustainable resource with significant environmental, economic, and social impacts.

Interestingly the WBO is headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium, and in the United States. The organisation was founded by Kamesh Salam (AKA The BAMBOOguru)and he is known for establishing World Bamboo Day.

Bamboo is understood as empowering a better
futures through bamboo's utility as it is a renewable resource with the potential to transform communities and indeed the planet.

The WBO promotes bamboo as a NATUREsolution crucial to mitigating the climate crisis and ensuring a sustainable future for all life on this planet. It is said that if something cannot be achieved with bamboo it is probable that it is unachievable.

There is also an Asian saying: "A man is born in a bamboo cradle and goes away in a bamboo coffin. Everything in between is possible with bamboo!" Thousands of products are available made from bamboo internationally [LINK] As a non wood forest product bamboo is considered Green Gold. Much of what was made of bamboo and 'traded' is now made of plastic. Plastic pollutes and bamboo returns to the earth gently.

All this said, bamboo typically gets an antithetic response in Australia from civic planners and environment managers. Bamboo is commonly charactorised as a 'nasty', an invasive weed and a plant to be avoided. This may well be the case for some species if left unmanaged and unutilized in urban CULTURALlandscapes.

Humanity knows how to avoid the over exuberance of a resource. It can be achieved and overcome by unsustainable exploitation.

There is in excess of 1500 species of bamboo [LINK] a great many of which have been utalised for centuries and are important useful components in the CULTURALlandscapes they exist within.

When Michael Mobbs – Sydney based sustainability expert – calls out recalcitrant and intellectually lazy planners for their "premeditated ignorance" there is little doubt that among them there are those who arev antithetic to bamboo in urban landscapes. The one dimensionality of the class of thinking that automatically derides and mocks bamboo's advocates is palpable albeit all too evident.

This class of planner is ever likely to be enthusiastic advocate for eucalyptus trees being left to achieve 'full expression' in urban landscapes. They are big trees that offer large canopies and shade. Nevertheless, it is not for nothing that these trees have earned the reputationS as MIDOWmakers and HOMEbreakers. They break under stress, bamboo bends.

Also, fully expressed trees fall victim to development initiatives and become "collateral damage" often without any kind of offset. The loss of amenity and habitat is contentious and the need more amenable outcomes grows if urban landscapes are not to fall foul of CIVICvandalism.

Indeed, many arborists will tell anyone who asks that they have seen far too many of such trees across homes, cars and sometimes people in urban streets. Trees in urban landscapes need to be managed and managed carefully. Bamboo in an urban streetscape needs to be managed carefully too.

BAMBOO BENDS

Most trees take 20 to 30 years to become valuable street trees but bamboo can do that in 4 to 5 years and sequestering carbon very quickly, and developing large quantities of biomass as it does so.

Moreover, Tasmania has had a productive forestry which is now under stress and at risk. Consequently Tasmanians have an understanding of and something of a reliance upon its old growth and plantation forestry. Adding bamboo to the mix holds the potential for an expanded and diversified forestry that in turn would have promise for a more viable forestry with considerable utility looking forward.

Urban CULTURALlandscapes and rural CULTURALlandscapes draw upon each other and the deliberate and proactive inclusion of bamboo in Launceston's CULTURALlandscapes would bode well for the city, the region and the state. On the evidence, it seems to be the time to call time on the prejudices and misinformation that has stood in the way of bamboo delivering all that it might hve up to now.

Circumstances have changed and we have to be proactive about changing in accord with those circumstances. So, let us recast our current problems into proactive goals.