Improved bamboo varieties provide a renewable supply of quality materials for Haiti's construction and handicraft needs. Bamboo is also a useful tool to counter soil erosion on hillsides and ravines.

A Bamboo program is bornIn the past four or five years, ORE has been pushing a program to introduce and mass-propagate high quality bamboo cultivars suitable for building and handicrafts. Improved bamboo varieties are one of the most suitable plant materials to combat the current exponential increase in hillside soil erosion, particularly for the control of ravines, and provide a renewable supply of material for commercial use. They are also a viable substitute for the local building industry's insatiable demand for post wood – a major cause of deforestation in the country. In 1999, Partners of the Americas and the Peace Corps in Haiti helped organize the assistance of a bamboo expert from Hawaii who made several trips to Haiti to provide training and help us get started. He brought twelve selected varieties generously donated by the Quindembo Nursery in Hawaii, adding to the collection previously introduced by ORE from Puerto Rico and Florida. The 12 new varieties were established at a propagation site in Camp Perrin. Propagation by root division and branch cuttings under mist spray have been used to increase the initial stock of 150 to over 12,000 plants. These fast-growing varieties quickly offer protection against soil erosion in ravines and on denuded hillsides, and improve the ecological conditions of watersheds, protecting the environment as well as supplying useful materials for the local population.

Every year thousands of these high quality cultivars produced in our nursery (above left) are being distributed to farmers.Varieties such as Guadua Chacoensis are excellent for the protection of river banks, ravines and the springs of the watersheds.

Local bamboo is used to build homes in certain areas of the country, but due to rapid infestation by mites this material is not durable. Improved varieties such as Guadua angustofolia produce culms 6 inches in diameter and 100 feet long. In Colombia they are used for house construction and are considered as durable as hard woods. The new varieties will be a tremendous asset to rural communities of Haiti. ORE is currently working primarily with the following varieties: Bambusa Burmanica, B. Edulis, Dendrocalamus Giganteus, D. Membranaceus, Gigantichloa Albociliata, Guadua Angustofolia Bicolor, Guadua Chacoensis and Thysosctachys Siamensis.

New bamboo varieties, such as Guadua Chacoensis, will provide more permanent building materials, and can replace the vast quantities of post-wood used for scaffolding.