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When Iron Bamboo Is Used In Place of Wood, Trees Are Saved
The cultivation and use of Iron Bamboo is a significant environmental benefit that helps offset the depletion of the world's rainforest. Iron Bamboo is cultivated and harvested at the Hacienda Xixim (pronounced "Shih-sheem"), an historic former henequen plantation dating back to the 1500s in the Yucatan jungle of Mexico. It is the largest privately owned bamboo plantation in the western hemisphere. Operating from Xixim del Sureste, S.A. de C.V., an American managed Mexican corporation, D.B.A. Yucatan Bamboo, Inc. is employing local workers from the towns of Muna and Opichen, providing them economic relief and allowing them to live with their families and to work in their own communities.
Bob Gow is a Houston entrepreneur who began his business career as Supervisor of Industrial Engineering for the world’s largest manufacturer of grinding wheels. Later, he founded what became the world’s largest grower of indoor tropical plants, cultivating plantations in remote Guatemala. In 1986, Bob purchased the Hacienda Xixim, abandoned and overgrown, deep in the jungles of Yucatan and restored it to its former glory. In 1993, it was the architecture study site of the Graduate School of Latin American Architecture of the University of Texas in Austin. The history of the hacienda, prepared by the University of Texas group, estimates that the Hacienda Xixim was founded between 1580 and 1590.
When Iron Bamboo seed became available in 1994, Bob had three motives for converting the Hacienda Xixim for the cultivation of this crop and the manufacturing of bamboo products:
Growing Iron Bamboo rapidly converts carbon dioxide to oxygen and plant material, thus contributing to a solution of the greenhouse effect caused by the depletion of the rain forests. Iron Bamboo is often a superior alternative to wood.
Cultivation of the bamboo and manufacturing of bamboo products provide employment for Mayan-speaking indigenous people in the village where their ancestors lived before Columbus. When you purchase a product from Yucatan Bamboo, you can feel that you are helping to further these goals.
Success in the venture will prove that growing Iron Bamboo, Dendrocalamus strictus, can be profitable.
Bob leased part of the hacienda to a Mexican corporation he founded to manufacture and sell the products. The principal managers of this corporation are Americans with a combined total of over 50 years business and engineering experience in the United States. This company markets wholesale, retail or OEM using the registered name Yucatan Bamboo, Inc.