From a utilitarian perspective,
Guadua is the most important American bamboo. Due to its quality, the genus has been widely used for house construction along the inter-Andean rivers of
Colombia and in coastal
Ecuador.
Guadua angustifolia,
endemic to
Tropical America, is slowly becoming well known once again as a building material. Highly appreciated by
Simon Bolivar for its watershed protection and praised by
Alexander von Humboldt for its wide variety of uses, it is being used in construction today in South America. Technical studies of bamboo's mechanical properties ("vegetable steel") have increased interest in its use. Although bamboo culms used for building can be harvested in natural forests,
over-exploitation leads to the depletion of natural resources. For large-scale use of
Guadua angustifolia, the management of sustainable bamboo forests and groves, as well as the establishment of new nurseries and plantations, is a priority. Tropical bamboo can be propagated with cuttings or by covering complete culms with soil. The next year, new plants will sprout. Or, many
Guadua species can be propagated more rapidly by the
chusquin method. Under this method,
culms are cut at ground level when harvesting causing many small shoots and new plants to grow around the original plant. This method is suitable for large-scale forests or
farm cooperatives. Since bamboo is a grass, harvesting it down to the soil induces more new shoots to emerge, just like
turf grass. This is a phenomenon not known in
tropical hardwood forests. Even more rapid methods have been recently developed through the use of tissue culture. Bamboo propagated in a laboratory in the space of one square meter will be sufficient to establish one hectare of new forest. These plants can also be readily transported in a one-half-cubic-meter box. Harvesting can begin six years after planting, making bamboo a potential source of tropical biomass production for industry (e.g., biofuels). For
architectural purposes,
Guadua angustifolia is the preferred bamboo species. Its diameter is constant for the first 15 meters and then tapers at the top. These features have attracted the attention of
civil engineers,
architects,
academics, designers, and artists. Environmentally,
Guadua angustifolia is effective at removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere due to its fast growth; ongoing studies in Colombia have now been coordinated by the
Environmental Bamboo Foundation. German Fire Authorities tested
Guadua angustifolia and, guided by the European Building Code, approved bamboo as a building material for the Guadua Pavilion at
Expo 2000 in
Hanover. Bamboo construction is also reported to be earthquake-resistant. This concept has been studied in Ecuador by the
International Bamboo and Rattan Organization and the Ecuadorian government.
Costa Rica reported similar experiences in earlier earthquakes there. ==Species==