Celebrating Visionaries in Bamboo Innovation

Linda Garland was the founder and president of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation, an institution that has been instrumental in the development of the modern use of bamboo throughout Indonesia and beyond.

Linda was born in 1948 in Ireland, the daughter of a Spitfire pilot and a nurse of Louis Mount Batton’s front line. Linda was genetically coded to be a courageous spirit, willing and able to fight for a cause. After starting a career as an 18-year-old designer, Linda unfortunately was involved in a very bad car accident that broke almost every bone on the left side of her body and left her hospitalized for a 2-year recovery process. She was subjected to an experimental procedure of several platinum bone implants. After recovery and a process of deep existential reflection, Linda traveled the world and ended up chasing a textile back to its source in Bali, Indonesia.

She fell in love with Bali, and a few years later (mid-1970’s), Linda discovered the island’s giant bamboos, and the multitude of bamboo utilization in the traditional way of life in Indonesia. L

As a creative designer, Linda integrated giant bamboo into many of her interior designs. Many of her clients were very high profile, such as Dr. Kajima of Kajima Enterprises, David Bowie, Richard Branson and several other inspiring people. Linda helped bring bamboo into high fashion in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and in the process helped several villages create cottage industries. Linda was awarded the Upakarti Award (the very prestigious nation-building achievement recognition award for those in the arts) from Indonesian President Suharto. Her achievements in catalyzing the formation of over 10 cottage industry areas in Bali had been noticed; all flourished into many multi-million-dollar institutions in Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia.

Sofas, chairs, beds, and jewelry: there was no limit to what Linda and her design team created from bamboo. Unfortunately, however, this caused a huge shockwave of demand for bamboo and wood in the replication and interpretation of these designs. Subsequent projects by many other designers “catching the drift” of these new ideas of modernized vernacular style, and within 5 years many unsustainable activities started to destroy bamboo and wood forest areas to supply the demand of these designers. This came at a time when logging in Indonesia was becoming very apparent with large plots of forests disappearing from one year to the next. It was from here that Linda, with her love of bamboo and compassion for the environment, created the “Environmental Bamboo Foundation”.

The EBF was conceived as an idea and working group in the mid 80’s and was finally officialized in 1992 with Indonesian environmental heroes such as Dr. Emil Salim. The EBF had several objectives; on the one hand it focused on promoting bamboo as a timber alternative with a “learning by doing” approach to developing many bamboo technologies, as well as working with many communities (especially in East Indonesia) to reforest and restore degraded lands with bamboo. These works were noticed by Professor Walter Liese of Hamburg University (World Bamboo Pioneer 2009) who worked on many trials of the “modified boucherie Sap Replacement system” of preserving bamboo. The EBF, aided by Dr. Liese and his network, went on to develop the “vertical soak and diffusion system” of preserving bamboo as the most appropriate technology solution for rural farmers in Indonesia who could preserve bamboo “as easy as filling a cup full of water”. This work was recognized by Dr. Dina Nath Tewari of the Forestry Research institute of Dehra Dun (World Bamboo Pioneer 2015) who awarded Linda an honorary PhD for her achievement in developing the vertical soak and diffusion system.

Linda hosted the International Bamboo Congress of 1995 (4th WBC) in her home in Bali, which brought together many different people important to the development of the bamboo sector in an interdisciplinary and interindustry dialogue. Linda indeed showed the world what bamboo could do and set the example of its realities. She inspired many people with her confidence and her abilities, her talents and her charm, and she became known as the “Queen of Bamboo”.

I’m not sure if she liked that moniker, Queen of Bamboo, but she achieved a high rank of respect, no doubt. After the IV IBC, she realized many projects and achievements as her Environmental Bamboo Foundation became internationally recognized. Her research into preservation techniques brought advancements in the improved understanding of best management practices, and the IV IBC Proceedings were a compilation of the most recent developments in bamboo science and culture. Remember, this was well before the world-wide-web, and this kind of information was critical for bamboo to advance in modern-day applications.

With the support of Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment, the Environmental Bamboo Foundation finalized the First National Strategy, which outlined the conservation and utilization of bamboo for Indonesia, launched by the Minister of Environment Dr. Sarwono Kustmajaya in 1997.

She opened her door (and her heart) to students and designers, investigators and dreamers. Bali already held mystique to many, but now it had become a bamboo mecca, thanks to Linda. People came to meet her, to talk with her, to see what she was doing. Linda pioneered a new world of bamboo – one with tradition but with technological and design innovation – and she realized the vast environmental benefits, which are today touted to mitigate climate change.

Her work lives on in the 1000 Bamboo Villages program that was launched at the COP 21 during the formation of the Paris Agreement. In Indonesia, bamboo has been identified as a key to restoring degraded landscapes whilst at the same time creating a community-based restoration economy in participating villages.

Linda was simply a visionary, a World Bamboo Pioneer like no other, and we are so grateful. Thank you, Linda. May you always feel the bamboo breeze against your cheek, thanking you for crusading for its respect and its promise, as we will all remember your valuable contribution.