Saturday, 18 January 2025

TANABE CHIKUUNSAI

 


TANABE CHIKUUNSAI, JAPANESE (1877-1937)
Bamboo, rattan, lacquer
"Chikuunsai founded a family of bamboo artists still active today, and in 1915 became the first bamboo artist to have a solo exhibition. He made this flower basket when he was 55 and had already made bamboo baskets for 42 years. He considered himself aged, and the title he gave this work reflects his wish for a long life. In fact, some might see an allusion in the shape of this basket to Mount Hōrai on the legendary Chinese Isle of Eternal Youth. Chikuunsai died five years later." - Minneapolis Institute of Art

Monday, 13 January 2025

BAMBOO THE MIRACLE PLANT

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Listen to the voice of bamboo

Bamboo leaves knocking

Maple leaves all aflutter
Wind out of the East

Upright, flexible
Never too full of itself
Honest like bamboo

Wrapping dumplings in 
Bamboo leaves, with one finger 
She tidies her hair.

Saturday, 11 January 2025

BAMBOO MUSINGS

 


In the Bible, the seventh day of the BIG BANG is described in Genesis 2:1-3 as the day when GOD finished her work of creation and rested: Genesis 2:1-3: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished her work that she had done, and she rested on the seventh day from all her work that she had done. So, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all her work that she had done in creation"… God saw all that she had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was ……


Well maybe, but we might well ask about the stuff that seems to be missing here and there. The world has plants for instance and there are plants that were not put everywhere for humanity to exploit in GOD’s bountiful Garden of Eden. Thinking about it, there are some miracle plants that lutruwita Tasmania and sometimes Australia too, just didn’t get – but it was a very, very busy six days.

Like in the beginning in lutruwita Tasmania there were no bananas and now they are the most purchased grocery item in the world – well somebody’s world anyway. And then there was the coconuts, hemp, the willows, and bamboo too – after that there is all those fruits and vegetables of the Americas ... maize, tomatoes, potatoes etc. With access to these plants, humanity could go anywhere, do most things and people did. However, Tasmania missed out.

It has been said that Australia (Tasmania?) is 'the land of milk and honey' but you must bring your own bees and cows. If we go looking there are some ironic coincidences to be mused upon here.

The Bible talks about the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate, an apple indeed that came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, lutruwita Tasmania had to wait until the first apple trees were planted in Tasmania in 1788 when William Bligh anchored in Adventure Bay on Bruny Island and planted a selection of fruit, including three apple seedlings – the first apple trees planted in Australia indeed. However, nobody told lutruwita’s people not to eat the apples or they would be expelled from paradise, which as it turns out they almost were.


So, it now seems that since GOD left stuff out of lutruwita Tasmania there is work to be done as this fractured history seems to tell us. Since colonisation lutruwita Tasmania has been exploited in a Eurocentric colonial mindset but without the wherewithal since then to deal with the ecological consequences.

Interestingly, just over 200 years ago the colonials started to bring more apples and willows but since then and upup to now hemp has inherited a bad name via pre and post WW2 sensibilities in the USA and by extension via DuPontbut that is another story and as they say in America .. "a whole new ball of wax."

In the USA marijuana was outlawed in 1937 due to racism, greed, deception and lies, primarily through the instrument of Harry J. Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD), the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), who testifies before congress that “marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind.

Anslinger was appointed director of the FBNDD in 1931 by his future uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon, of Mellon Bank (DuPont’s financial backer); his goal: criminalise cannabis hemp, which has accounted for nearly all paper, textiles, rope and lighting oil used prior to the 1930s, and promised, with the advent of new technologies, to become America’s new billion dollar crop with over 25,000 applications ranging from biomass fuel to cellophane.

With the improved methods of processing raw hemp, it was expected that hemp products would replace the polluting sulfate/sulfite process of making paper from wood pulp, as well as the environmentally detrimental process of making plastic from oil and coal, which were patented in 1937 by DuPont, the nation’s leading munitions manufacturer. The hemp seed oil market, which in 1935 consumed 58,000 tons of seed for paints and varnishes went to DuPont’s petrochemicals etc. etc. etc. [Reference].

BAMBOO.  HEMP
The film ‘Hemp for Victory’ is a black-and-white United States government film made during WW2 and released in 1942, explaining the uses of hemp, encouraging farmers to grow as much as possible. During WW2 , the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was lifted briefly to allow for hemp fibre production to create ropes for the U.S. Navy but after the war hemp reverted to its de facto illegal status.[Reference]

While hemp is a besmirched miracle plant ‘bamboo’ does not carry that sort of cultural cargo. However, in Australia, indeed lutruwita Tasmania too, bamboo is an 'elsewhere plant' that is not needed or just should not be here – in the view of many Taswegians. There might well be a PhD thesis at sometime in all this but bamboo for inexplicable reasons carries some of the load hemp has been burdened with.

Plus as bamboo is a tropical plant grown and exploited in Asia, and fulsomely, there are also prejudicial subtexts – and subtexts to the subtexts. It is said East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. At times one might well wonder if there is some intended utility in this binary.

The world’s Eurocentric colonisers wanted what Asia had to offer. Stuff that would enrich their economies and provide resources to counter the Father/Mother county’s' diminishing resources. Why? To fuel their burgeoning economies apropos the Industrial Revolution and its power to produce in the main. Seemingly, bamboo offered little to the colonisers except perhaps packaging for the stuff that was in demand.

Interestingly, hemp turns up in Australia in 1788, with the First Fleet of British convicts that arrived in Sydney. Hemp seeds were included in the goods and chattels this cohort of some 14,000 to 15,000 people sent to the other side of the world to build another version of
‘home’ in a place that was quite different – albeit terra nullius and ostensibly empty.


Apparently back then a colonist couldn’t do such a thing as start a new colony without hemp yet curiously the seeds do not appear on the inventory. It seems that on that occasion ‘willow’ only manifested itself in the ‘wickery baskets’ etc. –the plant came latter it seems. There was bamboo, but canes/poles not plants it seems, and there probably wasn’t a skerrick of it living anywhere in Sydney after those 11 ships were on their way home, but they do appear in the inventory. https://mhnsw.au/stories/plant-your-history/beautiful-bountiful-bamboo/

On the other hand, the records show that bamboo was first introduced to the colony by Governor Phillip in 1788. He hoped it would thrive in the favourable warm climate with year-round exposure to the sun. Bambusa balcooa is also a strong building material. It was often used to make chairs, fans, and woven mats in the Victorian period. Bamboo fences can be seen surrounding many of the gardens at both Vaucluse House and Elizabeth Farm. In fact, some original plantings of Bambusa balcooa still survive in these colonial gardens.

Also, it is likely that there were no coconuts that arrived with the the First Fleet either, and there might have been. Had there been they would not have taken to Sydney’s climate. Nonetheless, hemp was one of the crops that Phillip had deliberately brought with him on the First Fleeter and it was soon being grown by the convicts and settlers according to chronicles of the time.

Hemp cultivation in Australia continued to grow in the 19th century. Hemp was used to make a wide variety of products, including sails, rope, and clothing. Hemp was also used to make paper, which was the most common writing material until the invention of the printing press. Bamboo’s story in colonial Australia up to now is not so well known.

In the early 20th century, the rise of synthetic fibres such as cotton and polyester led to a decline in the use of hemp for textiles. However, hemp continued to be used for other purposes, such as making rope and paper.

What needs to be understood here perhaps is that in the industrialised corporate world, the corporates' wealth was antithetic to both hemp and bamboo neither of which relied upon their mineable resources. A competative 'fibre market' was not what was imagined as needed.

In the late 20th century, there was a renewed interest in hemp due to its sustainability and environmental benefits apropo 'climate change'. Hemp is a very sustainable crop. It requires very little water and fertiliser to grow, and it can be grown on a variety of soils. Hemp also helps to improve soil quality and reduce erosion. Most importantly hemp grows quickly and sequesters carbon. Talking hemp down made less and less sense albeit that there was (is?) a 'silence' where and when advocacy would make sense - ditto for bamboo.

Hemp is also a very environmentally friendly crop. It does not require pesticides or herbicides, and it does not produce any harmful emissions. Hemp is also a renewable resource, which means that it can be replanted and harvested year after year – this can also be said of bamboo except that it does not need replanting – ditto for bamboo.

As a result of its sustainability and environmental benefits, hemp is becoming increasingly popular in Australia. There are now a number of hemp businesses operating in Australia, and the demand for hemp products is growing. And this too can be said of bamboo except bamboo has never been illicit.

Yes, it has been imagined by some as a noxious weed and bamboo has been characterised as a plant that ‘will not grow in Tasmania’ with neither being the case.

To deny that the running bamboo species are invasive would be sheer folly. However, there is invasive and invasive. Nonetheless, plantings of running bamboos can be managed and especially so if or when grown as a crop. Humanity has often found a way to 'unsustainably harvest' vulnerable plants and animals and this needs to be remembered in context.

The prohibition of hemp in Australia began in the early 20th century. At the time, there was a growing concern about the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. The Australian government decided to ban all cannabis plants, including hemp.

Indeed inTasmania Bamboo, Hemp, Willow and the Banana might well be understood as 'useful sister plants'. In fact, it may well turn out that there are other plants and animal management systems that need to be employed and better understood in a wider community context. One endemic Australian plant would be be 'cumbungi' [1a] -
[1b] - [2] - [3] and then there is Australia's SUPERchook, the emu. If these things are managed intensively, say as a crop, they may again be useful in sustainable land management.

Essentially what is required now in Australia is a new mindset that does not come with preset Eurocentric cum colonial imperatives relative to cultural landscaping. That is a 'vision splendid' that by-and-large 'government' cannot deliver on given that governments rely upon 'voters' intentions' and thus blended and 'blanded down' common denominators prevail where "visions cum ideologies" become all too dangerous to be openly talked about.

Except for the fact that bamboo as it is yet to be seen as having the capacity to deliver its sustainability dividends more widely–rather given the opportunity so to do. It needs to be said over, and over, and over, that bamboo can be 'grown productively' anywhere on the planet given its ability to 'sequest carbon' as prodigiously as it does - and then deliver all its other benefits.

Bamboo can be grown in Tasmania in ways that benefit the Tasmanian cultural landscape and in the tropics for Tasmanian use given that in all instances bamboo will be helping the planet become increasingly sustainable.

HOW CAN COMMUNITIES ACT IN THEIR OWN BEST INTEREST?

There was as time when if as a community you wished to advocate something you could go to a government Minister or her/his department for advice. Chances are you would receive advice as to how you might engage with 'government' Federal, State, Local – and you might also receive advice on what grants and loans might be of interest to you. IF you have tried this recently no doubt you have a story to tell.

Currently there seems to be a different course of action to take and that would be to initiate a Coalition-of-the-Willing (Investors) (CWI) who together muster the wherewithal to act and where appropriate initiate a Proof-of-Concept (POC) project in a timely way. Often that will be in ways that governments are disinclined so to do..

In a community context in order to reinforce the 'trust' involved, as likely as not it will be necessary to put funding together via a Not-for-Profit Trust Fund or Foundation. Strategically, this is an enabling fund that enables 'concerned citizens' to initiate a project - say a POC. When in place a CWI may well engage with governance, win funding and itself invest in a project as an outcome of a POC. Moreover, proponents may continue to operate alongside other initiatives including government and corporate operations but initiating projects that governments et al are disinclined to implement yet always reinvesting in itself rather than distributing profits.

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Thursday, 2 January 2025

GARDEN 6GHCE7

15 minutes away from Santa Cruz lies an outdoor adventure that’s free and enjoyable for the whole family. Take a trip to the Bamboo Giant, and you and your kids will be transported to 38 acres of beautiful bamboo forests, koi ponds, trails and many other delightful surprises. The nursery is one of the largest displays of timber bamboo (the generic term for the really tall stuff) in North America, and it’s landscaped beautifully...... Click here to read more