VIDEO ... https://vimeo.com/1119614934?fl=pl&fe=sh

World Bamboo Day Webinar 18 Sep 2025

https://vimeo.com/1120001381?autoplay=1&muted=1&stream_id=Y2xpcHN8MTE2NjQ2ODY3fGlkOmRlc2N8W10%3D

CONTEXT

Launceston City Council has embarked upon a project to GREENlaunceston and consequently TOWNhall's Urban Forestry division has launched a survey reportedly to glean the citizenries understandings and aspirations. As is all too often the case such administrative initiatives come with a mindset that suggests that what is being sought is an endorsement for a plan in hand, a planner's 'vision' arrived at somewhat in isolation and often in the dark.

Likewise, in the vernacular, wherever it is that these visionary plans come from, the forms one must fill in to be a legitimate constituent are often devised by BLOWins who are not actually, or not yet, part of the cultural reality they are working within. This is not to say that they have no expertise, they do, but its not by necessity of the vernacular or informed by 'their placedness'.

Now in one sense this is quite OK but we do have to wonder about THEforms that 'must' be filled out. All too often these forms are PUSHpolls – quasi and subliminal or outright. So what is the actual utility in knowing the FORMfiller's gender, age, religion, ethnicity, sexual preferences and political alliances in order to work out where a FORMfillers sits on the MYSTERIOUSspectrum at HEADoffice where the form came from.

However, the forms tell the administration quite a bit about their 'clients' cum constituents'' willingness to comply and conform.

Perhaps this stuff is useful information but it is most valuable when volunteered and not extracted, garnered in a shared sense of placedness.

Nonetheless, asking the inhabitants of a CULTURALlandscape to share their views and aspirations in say 1,000 words and saying to the FORMfiller's that they may share any personal information THEY think is relevant says more. What they share and don't share would be quite illuminating. Then the people at HEADoffice may well be much better informed about the CULTURALrealities they are aiming to work WITH & WITHIN.

Indeed, the 'authority' of the research might well come with a shared understanding of 'placedness' that underwrites an agency for change.

When confronted with a HEADoffice looking for an endorsement for what'THEY' already have a plan for, and that will be, no has been, deemed to be the MOSTappropriate, almost always it will not require challenging change – bureaucratically, long live the status quo, it serves incumbency well. Actually, what is being sought is a common denominator that in a diverse community is unlikely to placate anyone except the compliant.

However, one might consider making a SUBMISSION and one MAY even divulge their SEXUALpreferences, who knows, but it, and other 'data' will perhaps be illuminating if one does – and especially so in the context of cultural placemaking.

Against this backdrop I will make a case for BAMBOO being a useful subject for STREETscaping and I will say which of the 1,4000 species might well fit the circumstance in Launceston from the vantage point of cultural landscaping.

Sadly it seems that the URBANforesters in TOWNhalls wherever can only see 'trees' and bamboo is a grass. It's a BLACK and WHITE thing, a kind of apartheid. What would be useful is the ability to see the wood in the grass. In order the get a a tidy outcome bureaucratically, there is the homogenisation of data –the blanding and blending. The cultural navigation in placemaking is ever likely to be contentious.

Then there is the issue of endemic plants and exotic plants from elsewhere but in the end the issue has to be all about viable and sustainable ecologies. In order to 'construct' new HOMEplaces valuable plants have moved with humans, by humans, for millennia ... coconuts, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, apples, plums, wheat, rice, maize etc. etc. etc. Places make culture and culture shapes places.

When we – personally and governments too – think about reforestation, bamboo may not be the first thing that comes to mind. And it’s true that bamboo isn’t technically a tree — but when planted/grows in areas where it is native, typically it is very beneficial. When it is mindfully and purposefully relocated it can also become a part of a new and constructed ecology.

As the fastest growing plant on the planet, bamboo has incredible potential as a sustainable ecological resource. Its woody stem makes it very tree-like, yet it also has unique properties. In Tasmania there is a need to learn more about this special plant and what it can deliver!

Indeed, we need to start to think about what bamboo has to offer in urban cultural landscaping along with its place within 'forestry' as a supplementary cum complementary 'timber source'! Importantly, bamboo needs to cohabit with other GREENINGvegetation many of which will also be 'exotic' and in the 21st C that is inevitable – consider plantations of Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus nitens, both of which, in timber output, bamboo might well out perform by three decades.

Also, consider GREENfacads that are very likely to become more common in urban greening strategies as they cool buildings, quieten them and in some instances mitigate against expensive refurbishment. AND, the buildings are not as susceptible to graffiti and other visual pollutants. There is an enormous range of climbing and cascading plants, Australian natives and exotics, that in Tasmania, alongside bamboo, they have much to offer in the way of 'carbon sequestration'.

When best practice is observed, the cutting and 'harvesting' of bamboo actually stimulates growth and by extension enhances the plants carbon sequestration capacity – and exponentially over time.

Many species of bamboo mature in four to eight years. Once plants reach maturity, they can be sustainably harvested as a perennial crop for 40plus years. Comparatively, trees typically take 30 years before being harvestable as timber/fibre and are typically harvested but once. Nonetheless, they have a place in cultural landscapes alongside bamboo in a 21st C context as new sustainable ecologies evolve.

Placedness, requires a sustainable ecology in order to offer the security and amenity required. By way of example, in music its 'sustainability', and its cultural utility, is orchestrated and almost always collaboratively. In the 21st C placemaking, sustainable placemaking, the need for collaboration, cooperation, and innovation is increasingly compelling. The 'heroes' in placmaking are those who innovate collaboratively and cooperatively with a Community of Ownership and Interest.

Anything that humanity is interested in, or needs, is not going to happen if we cannot breathe the air, drink the water or find enough food. Humanity just cannot sit this climate emergency out. We must do something. Humanity is by accident and fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the histories and our placedness in the context of our cultural realities.

With bamboo, because only the above round parts are harvested, there is less soil disturbance when it is harvested, which helps maintain stability. Also bamboo in more likely to bend in high winds than break. Bamboo is a 'friendly plant'.

In the end what it all comes down to is strong, healthy rhizomes that encourages vigorous growth of new shoots. In an urban situation, bamboo plantings alongside trees in an URBANforest, bamboo offers utility along with significant amenity that enhances humanity's placedness albeit via its elsewhereness at times.

Launceston was once at the heart of Tasmania's export timber industry and 'timber' was a determiner of the city’s CULTURALlandscape that is currently under repair due to that industry’s excesses and ultimate failure. The ‘timber industry’ is rarely discussed at polite dinner parties given that if it was it would be ever likely that an unwelcomed contentious discussion would arise.

Notably, city’s premier cultural institution, the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (QVMAG), has steered well clear of mounting any kind of exhibition that takes a critical look at the city’s relationship to the timber industry, largely an export industry. Interestingly on August 9 2019 the City of Launceston ceremoniously declared a Climate Emergency and has since put a GREENING LAUNCESTON POLICY in place – December 2 2023.

The City of Launceston council has endorsed its first urban greening strategy, which sets a target of planting 18,000 trees in an effort to double the city's canopy coverage. Arguably, IF bamboo was included in sufficient numbers, well the 18,000 target, that could feasibly be doubled and quicker.

Bamboo has a few things going for it in the sustainability stakes and even in the CIVIC circumstance.

1. Bamboo Grows Fast - Like, Really Fast
According to Guinness World Records, the fastest growing species of bamboo can grow up to 91 cm (35 in) a day. That's about 1.45 inches an hour, so if you sit with bamboo for long enough, it might just grow before your eyes!

2. Bamboo Has Regeneration Superpowers
No, really! When done in the right way, cutting bamboo actually stimulates growth. Many species of bamboo mature in four to eight years; once plants reach maturity, they can be sustainably harvested as a perennial crop for 40+ years. Because only the aboveground parts are harvested, there is less soil disturbance, which helps maintain stability. What it all comes down to? A strong, healthy rhizome that encourages vigorous growth of new shoots.

3. Bamboo Can Help Mitigate Significant Amounts of Carbon
Bamboo’s incredible growth rate is impressive, but that's not all that's impressive about the plant: it also has powerful potential for climate change mitigation. According to an analysis by Project Drawdown, "bamboo production can sequester 2.03 metric tons of carbon per hectare per year." This figure includes carbon that is stored in long-lived products made from harvested bamboo.

4. There are two main types of bamboo
The approximately 1,500 bamboo species in the world fall within two main categories: clumping and running. Clumping bamboos have roots that grow into clumps, which can become quite large over time. Running bamboos have long underground stems (rhizomes) that sprout new growth, enabling them to rapidly expand their reach. Some running bamboos are highly invasive, while clumping bamboos are considered far less so. Nonetheless, in the CIVICcircumstance each kind has place albeit that like grass and trees bamboo needs to be managed and that process can be income generative.

5. Bamboo is Really Strong and Flexible
Bamboo plants have hollow, but very strong stems that can grow up to 130 feet high with 1-foot-thick stems. With their hollow stems, they are able to grow to similar heights as trees, but much more quickly and using fewer resources. The largest bamboo stems can be used to create planks for building homes, while a combination of large and small stems can form the scaffolding found at construction sites –and more still.

6. Bamboo Rarely Flowers
Since vegetative growth is their dominant reproductive strategy, most bamboo species flower and produce seeds just once in their lifetime – after 12-120 years of growth.

While bamboo can sometimes be considered a weed due to its aggressive spreading nature, especially when referring to "running bamboo" varieties, not all bamboo should be considered a weed. In an appropriate circumstance running some bamboo's ability to spread might well be a welcomed attribute – but that is unlikely to be in an urban backyard.

Many types, particularly "clumping bamboo," are considered non-invasive and can be safely grown in gardens with proper management and containment methods.

"Running bamboo" spreads rapidly through underground rhizomes, making it more prone to becoming invasive, while "clumping bamboo" grows in a contained clump and is easier to manage.

With proper planting techniques like barrier installation, even running bamboo can be controlled and prevented from spreading beyond its designated area.

Many people mistakenly label all bamboo as invasive due to the aggressive nature of certain varieties. There are about 1500 bamboo species, some are invasive and many that are not. Nevertheless, 'bamboo' is regarded as a "weed" in many jurisdictions. In fact bamboos are seriously misunderstood yet if the plant's attributes are well understood, and exploited, then bamboo can be the right plant in the right place doing what it can do that cannot be matched by trees – not all of which have a sustainability role in urban CULTURALlandscapes.

Bamboo deserves to much better understood in the context of urban CULTURALlandscapes. Also, bamboo needs to be better understood in Tasmania for its 'materiality' and all that has to offer as the world looks to mitigate climate change. There is a way forward and engaging with communities in ways that offers people to come to understand bamboo in real world context.

A COMMUNITY SANCTUARY BAMBOO GARDEN

LINK

As Australia's quarter acre HOMEsite has incrementally diminished in size community gardens have become something of a necessity. Increasingly community gardens have become a vibrant part of urban precincts each with its own idiosyncrasies reflective of the cultural diversity in inclusive multicultural communities.

Arguably there is a role for Bamboo Sanctuary Garden as a community garden – as a 'whole-of-community' asset . Such a garden in reality cannot be managed and function in isolation from 'the community'. Certainly, if a garden of any kind on public land needs the support of Local Governance but ideally in cooperation and collaboration with community members.

That being accepted it is important that such a garden's purpose be clearly understood and articulated. As a 'nice idea' such a garden would have little relevance to many people. While it might be created to demonstrate sustainability, it would become unsustainable quickly enough without meaningfulness and placedness – albeit that such a 'garden' has became a tourism drawcard elsewhere.

THE NEED TO SHIFT MINDSETS

BERLIN VIDEO ... https://www.facebook.com/reel/9783858251701548

Firstly, it has to he said that in no way can bamboo be seen as

any kind of SILVERbullet. That cannot be claimed for any class

of plant life even endemic plants that evolved in a cultural

landscape where the ecological 'balance point' was fundamentally different pre-colonisation to the current cultural and ecological realities in Tasmania and other colonised places.

Fundamentally, cultural landscaping in Tasmania is a colonial

cultural construct and something that has evolved within a

mindset where the imperatives of elsewhere have become paramount.

Opportunities to develop an ecologically sustainable cultural

landscapes in colonised places have been missed and ignored in

deference to the imperatives and aspirations of elsewhere – in Tasmania and other colonised places/geographies.

Tasmania, is an interesting case study in that its 'placedness' is deeply impacted upon by Eurocentric colonial mindsets, plus the needs of and the sensibilities of elsewhere – typically the MOTHERland, blighted as that notion is by the terra nullius concept.

Moreover, the 'place' is an island with its own idiosyncratic and well defined geographies. Moreover, it is time that the lutruwitaTASMANIA islands' cultural realities are seriously engaged with rhizomatically towards the development of sustainable cultural landscaping in Tasmania. TOPdown (autocratic?) planning in places like lutruwitaTASMANIA, with histories like lutruwitaTASMANIA's, is ever likely to be contentious and contested.

Colonial and post-colonial TOPdown cultural landscaping has been exploitative with 'local' ecological sustainability not being a priority just so long as there was a 'market' elsewhere for lutruwitaTASMANIA's resources. It is what it is as is the

outcome.

Here it is worth mentioning that pre-colonisation ponrabbelLAUCESTON [LINK]this place was possibly lutruwitaTASMANIA's most abundant place. Colonisation along with the terra nullius concept saw this abundance exploited relentlessly. Curiously, the colonisers at one stage were starving and needed to seek 'rations' from elsewhere. So, the case for colonial and post-colonial unsustainable environmental management is clear and compelling. The current 'GREENING' might not be required otherwise.

Bamboo along with lutruwitaTASMANIA's endemic plants, Australia's native cum exotic plants and the world's exotic cool temperate plants together all have a niche' in the 'construction' of a sustaining cultural landscape.

Determining those niches' needs to be:

Structured 'rhizomatically' rather than hierarchically; and
Facilitated rather than imposed; and
Arrived at organically rather than administratively.

Arguably the need for a mindset shift is in many ways acute. Similarly the recognition the need to acknowledge the status quo's inadequacies is pressing.

THE UTILITY OF BAMBOO IN URBAN AND

PERI-URBAN CULTURAL LANDSCAPES

Firstly, it has to be said that 'bamboo' has been claimed to be the most useful plant on the planet. It is a bold claim, but it is an extraordinary and useful plant and one that has been largely overlooked in Australia and particularly so in Tasmania.

Bamboo's advocates are regularly told that:

•...Bamboo is an invasive weed. However, bamboo's detractors rarely identify which of the 14,000 plus species they speak of;

•...Bamboo will not grow in Tasmania. However, that may be true for a large number of the TROPICAL & SUBTROPICAL species, but there are many varieties that perform well in Tasmania as they do in similar temperate elsewhere.

•...Bamboo does not belong in Tasmania. Well to the extent that it might be true it is also true of most of the food plants grown in Tasmania along with a large variety of fibre producing plants and a great many deciduous trees grown for their amenity.

Advocates for bamboo usually need to start their endorsement with a reminder that the plant is an outstanding plant that in most Eurocentric mindsets its at the very least misunderstood. It must be said that this is all too often spiked with blind prejudice – sometimes driven by an ideology. The reasoning behind this assertion needs to be discussed but not here or now as it is outside the purposefulness of this paper. Nonetheless, the two sites linked to this paper are expansive in their advocacy for bamboo and the plant's utilities.

Geoff Pyne, Dec 1/12/24 ... The Green Revolution: How Bamboo is Changing the Game "Bamboo is an amazingly versatile plant with many uses. Plants are found all over the world and are highly resistant to heat, drought, UV light, insects, pollution, and more. They are also durable and can withstand some of the world’s harshest climates.

Bamboo is often used to make paper, food, clothes, and even building materials. Bamboo can be used to build homes in some areas where other materials are scarce. The plants are also extremely safe for construction because they contain no carbon.

The plants can also be used to make clothes, furniture, baskets, food, paper, flooring, building materials, and more!"

Against this kind of backgrounding the case for proactively including appropriate species of bamboo in Tasmanian urban, peri-urban and many rural landscapes is strong, compelling even. Despite the plant's detractors' negative narratives and often distorted assertions the case for proactively planting bamboo in urban cultural landscapes resonates quite loudly.

What are some of these?

• Bambusa textilis Gracilis, Bambusa Oldhamii, Bambusa eutuldoides‘, Bambusa multiplex, Fargesia, Fargesia, Bambusa ‘Compacta’, Himalayacalamus ‘porcatus’, Bambusa Chungii barbelletta .... all test grown in Tasmania and all are clumping varieties.

THE BAMBOO MYTH: Bamboo is NOT the invasive weed that it is claimed to be in every case! Not quite so, Some of bamboo's 14,000 plus species can be invasive but not always true of the species that will grow in Tasmania cool temperate climate. There are 'running bamboos' that may have a place in the urban circumstance but these species need to planted in 'contained locations or containers' especially so in urban gardens. Among the running species that need very careful planning when being planted are: Chimonobambusa marmorea (Marbled Bamboo)... Chimonobambusa quadrangularis (Square Bamboo) ... Phyllostachys heterocycla 'Pubescens' (Moso Bamboo - grown for its timber & shoots) ... Phyllostachys nigra (Running Black Bamboo) ... Pleioblastus viridistriatus (Dwarf Green Stripe Bamboo)

Nonetheless there is no longer any doubt that urban cultural landscapes and urban cum peri-urban landscaping need to be 'GREENER' and by design. Carefully selected and managed well, bamboo has a place Tasmania's cultural landscaping – urban and rural.

In Launceston there is utility in planting bamboo to offer:

Shade and screening in streetscapes; and
Stability on steep slopes; and
Assistance in mitigating against erosion where needed; and
Wind brakes where needed; and
In remediating decimated land such as landfill sites; and
Access to a fibre and food resource.

PLUS and quite importantly when included in urban CULTURALlandsaping – and importantly in street plantings – this offers an opportunity to demonstrate and market bamboo's utility. In the context of bamboo in the role of a supplementary cum complementary timber cum fibre resource bamboo has much to offer.

If better understood in an ecologically sustainable network of networks relevant to forestry endevours and enterprises in peri-urban and rural landscapes bamboo would be beneficial without question given the evidence already to hand.

CHANGE AND DISRUPTION

In the context of handed down wisdom, the talk is about politics always being the art of the possible. Nevertheless, all too often politics is about the maintenance of the status quo and the probable. Likewise, future gazing leads to tinkering around the edges without insightful vision, without a sense of optimism, and without imagination but always imagining that nothing will really change.

Outside the box thinkers, divergent thinkers, typically get to be called out for being some kind discordant irrational and destructive activists. Divergent thought processes are used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions, rather than seeking a single, supposedly correct answer. So, in order to be 'correct', and assuming that what exists is correct, the imperative to change gives way to the status quo.

On occasions like currently, where fundamental change is an imperative, it is worth remembering the words of the conservative American President, Ronald Reagan, who said that, the status quo you know is Latin for the mess we are in. Yes, he was was speaking in a different context. Nonetheless, the words fit the contemporaneous circumstance where too little is being done to mitigate the consequences of CLIMATEchange, URBANsprawl and the ongoing degradation of humanity's CULTURALlandscapes.

Since ancient times THEgrid has dominated city planning and it is not for nothing that THEgrid offers administrative utility with a military purposefulness of a kind that has become subliminally implanted in urban planning mindsets.

Cities are centres for human activity, trade, commerce, productivity, and innovation. They offer their inhabitants diverse opportunities for employment, education, healthcare, and cultural experiences. Overall they exist to improve the quality of life for their inhabitants albeit that the resources needed to do so, and are depended upon, are beyond their boundaries and somehow imagined as unbounded. 

Cities are also epicentres of a kind for colonialism that includes economic exploitation for the benefit of the 'Empire'. An Empire's people and natural resources are exploited. The creation of new markets for the colonisers. By extension, the coloniser's ways of living extend beyond the Empire's borders. 

Also, city planning and military planning come together given that seats of Empire are typically 'forts'. Given this, concepts such as the "military crest" come into play. This tactical concept is crucial for planning defensive positions and projecting POWERcentres – Town Halls, Cathedrals etc. – importance. Cities are places where political power generates wealth.

However, since the Industrial Revolution, cities' ancient purposefulness has been, and is being, increasingly eroded. Alongside this the global onward march of industrialisation, burgeoning technologies and sprawling urban landscapes means that ecological sustainability is increasingly being compromised. Thus, a point in time has been arrived at where it is clear that the status quo is unsustainable and when fundamental changed needs to be brokered.

Importantly, cultures founded upon colonial exploitation are needing to be more environmentally cum ecologically sustainable and indeed more self-sustaining with it.

Mahatma Gandhi was right when he said ‘The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed’. He spoke with the first hand authority of colonised person reimagining a post-colonial existence. Gandhi is also is often quoted for saying "Be the change that you want to see in the world" and "Action expresses priorities." 

Considering that people in developed, Westernised countries are not only the highest consumers of all resources, but also the largest producers of waste. It is already past the time to take a long critical look at cities', their consumption patterns, their ecological sustainability, and consider what part they can play in ensuring a healthy future not only for THEplanet, but everyone on it. Cities' placedness needs to be reimagined and somewhat beyond the post-colonial circumstance

LINK [1] - [2]
Jorn Utzon in the late 1950s and 1960s challenged the assumed utility of the THEgrid. Utzon advocated incremental change but

he pushed boundaries nonetheless.  Perhaps Utzon's most famous quote is, "I like to be on the edge of the possible".  He also emphasised the importance of creating a "humane and friendly world" by design. He has left us two housing estates in Denmark that challenge THEgrid's precedence three generations on.

If car ownership is mandatory, then a city is not urban. In a sustaining city, people should be able to live a quality life without a car, and not feel deprived. A good sustainability and quality of life indicator: The average amount of time spent in a car.

When ineffective placemaking is written into trivial plans, the 'placemaking' it is blighted strategically. Here, effectively, the 'plans' are lists of decisions that have already been taken. Moreover, the planners' professional turf is defended and invented jargon and esoteric language is used to maintain the status quo all too often. 

The energy invested in developing arcane and difficult to interpret planning methodologies is misspent. Planning processes that typically avoid complex choices are bewildering given the quantities of data that goes toward not having to face the need to make choices.

Invented names and functions for planning often exist to protect themselves by the 'professionalisation' and systemising of planning processes. Planning becomes bureaucratic, data is collected, its analysis takes place routinely, and typically well away the PUBLICglaze. Typically, nobody seems to have much to say about the usefulness of these planning processes except those who carry them out.

It is not uncommon for 'planners' to overemphasise the professional sanctity of their calling. Strangely enough in the handed down wisdom of the world it is said that humility is ennobling, and that there is something in pride which debases any of that.

When it comes to 'GREENING' and placemaking in the context of the status quo planned greening is a contestable process given the implied boundaries that come with THEgrid and all that is invested in it.

The cross-disciplinary nature of 'GREENING' research and strategic policy development poses challenges because practitioners from a various of fields such as, planners, designer, engineers, horticulturalist, anthropologists, and others need to coordinate their efforts and collaborate in order to create effective greening strategies that.

When strategically theGREENING is a TOPdown process by design in 21st C context almost inevitably the change mechanisms are inhibited and indeed when change the administrators are fundamentally diffident about change.

Relative to understanding bamboo in a Tasmanian context there is a range of expertise that come into play such as in fields of urban planning, water management, landscape architecture, horticulture, ecology, urban forestry, psychology, engineering and policy development.

Planners and placemakers need to jointly and collaboratively address cross-cutting problems, identify challenges and opportunities, and prioritise the GREENING issues. 

In reality, the GREENING of places and CULTURALlandscapes is not anything that can be achieved 'authoritatively', premised on the evidence to hand. Therefore, despite the current administrative mindsets that strategically preferences common denominator TOPdown 'solutions' needs to be replaced by inclusive and rhizomatic cooperative and collaborative strategies. The difficulty here is in the need to disrupt the status quo.

It appears that in lutruwitaTASMANIA the very suggestion that bamboo might be a viable consideration in THEgreening going forward is unwelcome and the cause of derision. When thinking ahead and thinking strategically and about how bamboo could contribute to the development of a sustainable ecology and economy, status quoism makes itself quite evident. It is in the lines of defence against change and it is deeply entrenched and formidable.

Curiously, the status quo that is defended cannot imagine a lutruwitaTASMANIA differently, albeit at the same time, talking about a very long list of introduced food and fibre plants that need to be called out. Then there is an almost equally long list of animals and birds that are a part of a defendable status quo.

The status quo is conflicted as are Tasmania's histories!

And, when all this gets to be articulated, enter stage left the very long list of INVASIVE PLANTS and FERAL ANIMALS that need to be eradicated in order that AUSTRALIAN AND TASMANIA NATIVE SPECIES might flourish.

Embedded in all this there is a class of rhetoric that verges on

the surreal spiked as it is with

warped memories and rationales that are founded upon the bureaucratic imperatives of elsewhere – some imaginary globalised precinct far away.

A poignant symbol of lutruwita sustainability and ecological balance is the TASMANIANemu. For 30,000 years this flightless bird cohabited the island and arguably did so while being 'husbanded' by the palawa and pakana people. Thinking about this and the fate of flightless birds elsewhere, once discovered the Dodo went extinct very quickly. Likewise when the Maori people arrived in Aotearoa the extinction of the islands' Moa took but a few centuries of human arrival, possibly less, mainly to do with human predation – and arguably to do with it being focused on their eggs.

The TASMANIANemu went extinct within two generations after European colonisation [reference] and by-and-large for the same reason as the Moa went extinct in Aotearoa. Colonial expansion is depleting by necessity.

Somewhere in the midst of the rhetoric that hinges upon a kind of defence for a lutruwitaTASMANIA placedness where 'exotics' are called out for their undesirability, it turns out that there are more disconnects than connects evident in all this – and thus in the CULTURALlandscaping.

In this lutruwitaTASMANIA status quoism there is without doubt a PhD thesis or two yet to be written about the

CULTURALrealities and placedness.

In Northern Australia in Aboriginal communities there is a euphemism for the time before colonisation. It is BT (beforeTROUSERS) and it is as eloquent as it might be quirky and quaint. Interestingly, it is sometimes used to assert cultural authority, precedence and placedness – an it is very effective.

lutruwitaTASMANIA's placedness is as blighted by recent history as much as it might be the colonial histories that have shaped 'place'. Oftentimes "premeditated ignorance" (Michael Mobbs) that comes into play in the struggles and tussles to do with CIVICprecedence is also a factor.

In December 2019 Launceston declared a CLIMATE EMERGENCY but fundamentally ever since, and under various administrations, very little of significance has changed.

Arguably more trees have been removed than planted in recent times. Many have been important from heritage and environmental perspectives. Thinking about the realities of our time lutruwitaTASMANIA might do well to look to our geographic neighbourhood for insights into wisdom.

There is a Zen proverb that tells us to look to pine trees to learn of the pine tree and to look to bamboo to learn of the bamboo. Likewise, it is said that if it cannot be done with bamboo it probably should not be be done at all.

When it comes to Placemaking, it is not Placemade. It is a process, the placedness is invested in the doing, it is cultural, it is landscaping and it is never finished!

We belong to places, and in all reality places cannot belong to us. We owe places a great deal, places owe us nothing. In their substance places provide our sustenance, our shelter, our safety and they welcome us despite all that we take from them.

BAMBOO, CULTIRAL landscaping and AGROFORESTRY

[ LINK 1 ] - [ LINK 2 ]

There is a point of view that seems to say that bamboo has no place in Australian or Tasmanian forestry. It is an understanding that is rooted in Australia's colonial histories and the exploitive Eurocentric export paradigm that underpinned forestry practices until recently when forest exploitation became increasingly unsustainable.

Given the need for change in forestry management, and given that it is now said that Tasmania is a net importer of timber, the increasing focus on bamboo has much to offer looking ahead. Bamboo being fast growing, an exemplary sequester of carbon and a prodigious producer of oxygen it is hard to ignore its potential. Interestingly, no mattter where bamboo is grown in the world it is an important mitigator in the climate management paradigm. It matters not where the plant grows because wherever it is, it will be sequestering carbon and emitting oxygen. Nonetheless, there is a multitude of reasons for growing bamboo in Tasmania not the least of them being that every part of harvested bamboo has utility.

In order to bring about a MINDset change it is clear that the status quo needs to be disrupted. This is true of understandings, 21st C understandings, relevant to technology, materiality, resource recovery, social media and marketing.

The ego might resist change until the level of discomfort becomes unbearable. Employing logic to overcome the ego’s defence mechanism to integrate revisions in obsolete beliefs and understandings can work. The subtle sense that something is amiss can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in conscious thoughts and outlooks. Resisting change typically prolongs distress whereas implementing change can establish harmony and wellbeing.

While shifting mindsets is often daunting in the face of the worlds climate emergency and geopolitical realignments, if humanity is to survive change is an imperative.

There are four imperatives governing human behaviours. The first is securing the life sustainers – oxygen, water food. The next is to identify within the group – relationships and rank. After that humans, as do all animals, need to underpin 'survival' by procreating – genetically and ideologically. And finally the need to secure and welcoming safe place to live – a home.

Wherever bamboo grows its 'materiality' offers a sustainable food source. Likewise, bamboo offer great utility in providing housing and humanity's domstic needs. Bamboo's utilty is peerless and especialy in contract to the consequences of the world's mined resources all too many of which come with environmental hazzrds.

David Suzuki tells us that ... “If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance. Suzuki continually pointed out that humanity's choices in in governance and personally choices affect nature and us in every way and all the time. Thus humanity's aspirations to maintain the status quo puts our CULTURALlandscapes in peril and thus our unborn grandchildren's grandchildren cultural wellbeing as well.

THE NEED TO SHIFT MINDSETS

Here there is an example of a MINDset that demonstrates that that bureaucratic administrations in Australia are not staffed with people who understand the CULTURALlandscapes where plants like bamboo, hemp, the bananas, coconuts, the willows, poplars, mimosa etc. All misunderstood and generally all are mismanaged in most Australian landscapes. Concerningly, most of this plants have much to offer in the context of the new evolving ecologies in the postcolonial cultural realties now being experienced.

In Tasmania hemp has found supporters and growers and hemp along with bamboo are two plants touted as being salvation plants.