Designing for Abundance: An Opportunity for NW Bamboo Integrated Resource Systems and Urban / Rural Reciprocities.
Presented by Dr. Jonathan Scherch for the Snohomish County Sustainable Development Taskforce.

Scherch will discuss ideas for an integrated resource system approach to “eco-entrepreneurial” innovations for sustainable development. He will introduce and explore opportunities for designing a vanguard bamboo industry initiative, featuring urban and rural partnerships to cultivate, process and produce a portfolio of valuable bamboo and related products and services. Via regional and international teaching and consulting, Scherch regularly engages in interdisciplinary efforts for sustainable community and economic development, typically featuring robust whole-system design intentions for social, economic and environmental integrities.

Since 1998, Scherch has served as Core Faculty with the Graduate Program in Environment & Community at Antioch University Seattle, and in 2004, co-founded Pacific Bamboo Resources (PBR) a research and development collaborative supporting international and domestic bamboo conservation, cultivation and integrated resource systems. PBR affirms and supports efforts at resolving global climate change, achieving significant carbon emission reductions and related energy transitions, while fostering local economic development, ecological restoration and improved quality-of-life. In 2007,

Scherch returned from a 7-month sabbatical in China, where he conducted research and taught courses on bamboo resources and sustainable development innovations, and visited Dhaka, Bangladesh to consult with NGOs on urban / rural bamboo industry development.