Bamboosero News

Yonso Project Update

December, 2009

The Yonso Project has spent the past 5 years working to provide scholarships, microloans for business women, and a variety of other community oriented services, but until this year we haven't found a good, effective way to address the conservation dilemmas in this hotspot of biodiversity. As the flagship program in our drive to provide alternative employment for those engaged in ecologically harmful work, our collaboration with Bamboosero gives us an excellent opportunity to do just that. By providing individuals who make their living through poaching with a more lucrative alternative producing ecologically friendly bamboo bikes. Our only requirement, as soon as they begin accepting a paycheck from us, they can no longer poach.

We started with 3 poachers, one from each of the three prime communities with which we work. Following Craig's training, each of the new bambooseros began work collecting bamboo for future production. While waiting for the supplies necessary to continue, our carpenter finished the solar bamboo curing oven which turned out to work perfectly, reducing bamboo curing time from 3 months to several days.

We've spent the weeks since training collecting bamboo for curing, readying the workshop for production, and completing the frame built as part of the training process. The final tools and supplies necessary for frame production arrived within the past week and so we began the first frame from scratch yesterday, on Wednesday the 9th.