Entrepreneur sees bamboo boost for Haiti

Nicaragua

Armed with sacks of bamboo seeds, Ben Sandzer-Bell arrived in post-earthquake Haiti earlier this year with a plan to offer an eco-friendly way to bring housing to the estimated 1.5 million left homeless by January’s 7.0-magnitude temblor. Sandzer-Bell sees a business opportunity in Haiti: low-income prefabricated bamboo houses, which are less costly to build than concrete dwellings and less likely to crush people in earthquakes and hurricanes. He believes demand for them could spur the development of bamboo plantations and, thus, reforestation of a sort in the most environmentally degraded country in the Americas. “There’s a complete and instant rethink for many Haitians about how they are going to build their next house,” says Sandzer-Bell, a French-American... [Log in to read more]

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