It’s easy to underestimate the humble bamboo as just panda food. But in fact many people rely on it around the world. It’s such a versatile material, providing scaffolding, clothing, tools, paper, chopsticks, bikes, toys, food and drink, to name just a few.

Bamboo is actually a type of grass – one of the fastest growing on the planet. It can easily grow four feet in a single day without the need for pesticides, irrigation or fertiliser; a farmer’s delight. It also acts as a wonderful air purifier by emitting up to three times more oxygen than a tree of the same size.

At Eden, we want to showcase the important link between people and nature, so we don’t just grow bamboo, we’ve even built a house out of it in our rainforest Biome. Check out this video of Martin explaining how Eden have harnessed the power of Bamboo. There are plenty of bamboo products for sale in our webshop, too, so you can incorporate it into your life as well.

Here are our top five bamboo products:

Despite being incredibly robust, bamboo produces luxuriously soft fabric, which is exactly what we want in a cuddly teddy bear. These bears are stuffed with recycled materials too, so they’re totally eco-friendly. With embroidered eyes and a cloth nose, any child will love this toy.

We have a vast bamboo kitchenware section, featuring chopping boards, spoons, bowls and more. Unlike plastic chopping boards, where knife grooves can harbour bacteria, bamboo’s natural antibacterial properties mean it neutralises bacteria left on the wood – just what you want in a chopping board.

Our bamboo toys are coated in brightly coloured non-toxic paint, so they’re both safe and fun for little ones. These durable toys can be happily passed down siblings for years and will always be a favourite in the toy box.

These tall nesting baskets are hand woven in rural villages in Vietnam to supplement farmers’ low income. They’re made out out of bamboo fibres and deceptively strong. They come in a variety of colours to brighten up your home, whilst also brightening up farmers’ lives.

Bamboo baby utensils and bowls are a great eco friendly alternative to plastics. These are durable, lightweight, and robust – a good combination in a baby’s determined hands. They’ll even biodegrade when you don’t need them any more. This solid bowl is made of one hollow bamboo stem.

If there is a sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative to plastic or metal, why use anything else?

Ensure there’s always a supply of feed for the birds

Eden birdcake
This high energy blend of sunflower hearts and insects will attract a variety of birds including house sparrows, finches and tits. What’s more, a donation of your purchase will go towards the RSPB so you can help birds nationwide.

Tailor your feed to the birds you want to attract

Thrushes love fruit, such as apples and pears. They will reward you with sweet warbling, so put a little out to attract them. Expect to hear a lot of singing, as they tend to become more sociable over winter!

Just as we like to eat more wholesome meals in winter to keep our energy levels up, so do birds. Give them fatty suet for a little more nutrition over the cold spell. It’s especially beneficial for treecreepers and goldcrests. Our ball suet feeder is easy to fill and totally weatherproof so it will hang proudly through the wind and rain.


Keep their food sheltered from the elements

This beautiful bird feeder will not just brighten up your garden, but also keep high calorie seed mixes sheltered from strong winds and rain. Birds will only come to feeders if they feel safe, so make sure you place it somewhere close to the safety cover of trees. And make sure you keep the feeder away from your pet cat’s favourite haunts!


Plant a bird friendly garden

Plant plants such as hawthorn, ivy, honeysuckle and the exotic Japanese aralia that will provide berries in the winter for adult birds, and insects for young birds in spring.

Make a log pile

Pile up your logs in a shady spot to encourage all sorts of insects, moss and fungi, which birds just love. You may also attract hedgehogs and toads.


Look after your creepy crawlies!

Provide an insect home to give the birds fuel throughout the winter. The more insects you attract to your garden, the more birds will come. A wide range of insects use these structures to lay their eggs or hibernate through the winter.


2. Keep a fresh supply of clean water readily available

You could add little floatable objects such as twigs or balls to prevent the water from freezing. Don’t be tempted to add antifreeze – just keep it topped up daily.

Harness the power of nature and top up the bird bath with rain water. This oak finished water butt is particularly beautiful as it blends in with the garden.


3. Give the smaller birds a place to roost




This will help keep the birds sheltered from the elements, but also provide a nice place for breeding later in the year. Here at Eden, we have a wide selection of bird boxes, but this one has to be the most popular. If space is an issue, simply stick this window bird feeder on and enjoy watching the birds come in for shelter. This one is completely see through so you get a fantastic view as they can flit in and out with insects and worms.

It’s sooo easy to enter – simply text the answer to our simple question on our competition page, by 5pm 31 August 2011.

All money raised from the prize draw will go to support Eden’s Rainforest Experience, our new project to raise awareness of the value of the world’s rainforests.

We’re currently fundraising to develop an exciting new treetop walkway and learning centre inside our Rainforest Biome, so that child and adult alike will leave Eden knowing how they can make positive changes to the way they live that will help conserve rainforests around the world.

So it’s great news that last week’s quiz night, hosted by comedian Marcus Brigstocke and TV designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, has raised more than £40,000 for the project.

Teams were tested on environmental questions by the quizmaster, Marcus Brigstocke, who has performed a stand-up routine at Eden as part of our events on climate change.

They were then treated to an auction hosted by the flamboyant Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, presenter on ITV’s recent Auction Party. Prizes included an Amazon cruise with Eden’s scientific director and world authority on rainforests Professor Sir Ghillean Prance.

Laurence said: ‘It’s exciting when people come together to raise money for a specific cause. An event like this gets everyone involved and linked back to Eden to show us that all of these issues start at our own front door.’

Part of our 10th anniversary celebrations and backed by writer, broadcaster and Eden non-executive director Rosie Boycott, The Big Green Quiz was held at London arts venue The Tabernacle on 11 May. Laurence added: ‘Ten years on shows that Eden is not a flash in the pan with its creativity and longevity.’

Explore our Rainforest Biome on Google Street View.

Eden’s huge indoor rainforest is an ideal place for Sussex University’s Dr Peck to get samples on his doorstep, because we can grow monster trees from tropical rainforests to nearly their full height.

With a bit of tuition on manoeuvring the balloon, from the guys in the Rainforest Biome team, Dr Peck (left) managed to collect samples from some of the highest leaves too, to carry out the experiments needed to develop the anti-logging tool.

Illegally logged timber from tropical forests makes up approximately 40% of the world’s wood supply – but new legislation and traceability measures are to prevent it from being placed on the EU market from 2012.

Systems like Dr Peck’s, that could potentially identify trees in customs or on the back of a lorry or boat, would be a huge help in the fight against deforestation.

Find out more about Eden’s Rainforest Biome, canopy balloon and treetop lookout.

Check out Dr Peck’s work at Sussex University.

There’s no shortage of top tips for a greener life: fitting energy-saving lightbulbs and so on. But are they useful? Yes and no. They can trivialise the issues; saving the world isn’t just a matter of what goes in your shopping basket, and it takes the heat off the big guys. But if we had to write our own top 10 tips (well, 11 actually!), they’d go like this:

1. Do stuff
Don’t waste it, turn it off, turn it down, do it less, do it local, do it yourself, recycle, swap, repair, share.

2. Be hopeful
Hope isn’t just about crossing your fingers. Without it we could get cynical and frozen in despair. Hope is the fuel – but it only works if you do something.

3. Learn about your life
Is having ‘stuff’ bad? Not always: trade is not the same as consumption and can support livelihoods. Understand what sustains you and what you need to care about. Learning new talents and skills can help you get there.

4. Increase your reach
There’s only so much you can do on your own. Try working with or through other organisations. Also don’t forget that your wallet is your weapon. Make buying choices that help good things happen – worldwide.

5. Be angry at the things you can’t change…
but think about who can change them. Demand that governments, companies and big organisations change with us and give us real choices.

6. Imagine different things
The 21st century will be a time of transformation. Meet different people, explore different things, read different books, try out new ideas.

7. Give gifts and give thanks
Understand why we need each other. This is a time to support each other, to work together and build communities.

8. Get out more
People can’t care about what they don’t understand and don’t have some sense of connection to. So we need to get out and down in that dirt lest we forget how it keeps us alive. Play together, learn, explore and have adventures.

9. Forgive yourself (and others)
Sustainable development will be a territory for endless exploration. Learn from mistakes. We make mistakes because we act, strive and aim high – and that is what makes us human.

10. Have fun
‘Living a sustainable life’ isn’t all about ‘don’t do this’ sucking the joy out of living. Where is the adventure in that? There are worlds of possibility out there. Rich cultures, rich experiences, music, laughter, fun and just enjoying life more – all foundations for a better future!

11. Be the change you wish to see in the world
Gandhi’s saying sounds like something from a hippie poster, but actually it was one of the greatest social insights of the 20th century. So, do everything positive you can, not because a list has told you to but because it’s who you want to be.

Tony Kendle is Foundation Director at the Eden Project. Find out about the inspiring programmes that Eden is doing to be the change we’d like to see in the world.

I’ve visited some 70 countries in the last 20 years trying to make sense of the world – its people, its environment and their worsening predicament. Along the way I’ve written a bunch of books, most of the recent ones published by Eden Project Books, and several million words of journalism.

I try to be optimistic. I do still think our fate as a species is in our own hands, and that the planet and its ecosystems will survive our depredations one way or another. But sometimes I just have a stop and wonder at the chaos we are causing. Here’s a list of some of the scariest things I’ve seen.

1. Muynak, Uzbekistan: Standing on the old sea front and looking out across the old Aral Sea. The water is now 100 kilometres away over the horizon, replaced by a new unexplored desert – thanks to water abstraction to grow cotton.

2. Svalbard, Arctic Ocean: Stripping off to sunbathe less than a thousand kilometres from the North Pole, with polar bears in the hills. Global warming did this.

3. Gambella, Ethiopia: Watching thousands of white-eared kob running at high speed across the bush – a migration second only in Africa to the Serengeti’s wildebeest. And visiting an Indian company constructing a vast plantation across their path. Why has the world not heard about this?

4. Huayuankou, China: Standing on the spot where, in 1938, a Chinese general thwarted Japanese invaders by dynamiting the dykes of the Yellow River, but also drowned nearly a million of his countrymen. Today, behind its dykes, the silty river flows 20 metres above the surrounding plain. The next breach could kill even more.

5. Sumatra, Indonesia: Watching 44-wheel ‘road trains’ dragging virgin timber from the world’s second largest rainforest to two giant paper mills.  Most scary of all, the corporation responsible claims it is helping the environment – by employing poor people who would otherwise trash the forest.

Fred Pearce is an environmental and science writer, many of whose books have been published by Eden Project Books, including his latest, Peoplequake: Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the Coming Population Crash.

Find out how the Eden Project is helping tackle climate change by reducing the impact of its own operations and engaging the public on the issue, through its Climate Revolution programme.

Imagine that you’re on a spaceship, having left a now desolated Earth with a few thousand human companions. You come across a planet, a beautiful blue planet with white ice-caps at the poles and a girdle of rainforest around its equator.

What a beautiful place.

As you explore this planet you find it full of life. Yes there’s the odd bird, but the seas are full of whales and turtles and fish. The land surface is covered with plants of all shapes and sizes – mosses, ferns, sedges, trees, grasses and flowers. You could spend a lifetime learning about them and loving them.

But your task is to colonise this planet. It’s your second chance. It’s back to the Garden of Eden.This time you’re equipped with modern technology and the knowledge of where we went wrong on our first attempt at living in Eden. So, what guiding principles might you set in place to make this time a success?

What about putting women in charge? Limiting the human population? Or only using renewable energy? Making vegetarianism compulsory? Banning religion? Getting rid of money and bartering instead? Banning TV, even? Or making ecology the only subject taught in schools?

These are just a few ideas to start us off, but you tell me… The answers might help us avoid having to get on that spaceship.

Mark Avery is the RSPB’s Director of Conservation. He writes a regular blog for the organisation.

Learn more about the world’s precious forests on our rainforest facts page.

So, I have good and bad news. Starting with the not so good… the problems the planet’s facing haven’t arrived from outer space – they’re the combined outcomes of all our everyday actions and choices.

And now for the good: that means we’re all part of the solution. Collectively, thousands of readjusted everyday actions can help set us on a new trajectory.

Far from living in a cave with the TV switched off, there are plenty of enjoyable everyday ways to make a difference. Here are some of my favourites:

1. Savour the flavour of low-impact homegrown food
Avoid food miles by trying some simple ‘gardening’, like growing sprouting beans on a worktop, herbs on a windowsill or potatoes in a stack of soil-filled tyres.

2. Buy what you can’t grow yourself, from local producers
Use virtual farmers’ market Big Barn to find local suppliers.

3. Cook from scratch and make leftovers into new feasts 
Love Food Hate Waste has great ideas, like Italian bruschetta or cranberry brownies.

4. Love your butcher, baker and candlestick maker
Shop locally and support local enterprises – they’ll reward you with personalised service the big guys can’t match.

5. Use your legs
Replace short car journeys (when engines are cold and polluting) with your own momentum. Plan walking routes using walkit.com, which shows you how many calories you’ll burn as well as how much CO2 you’ll avoid. And try the crafty sat nav-style Bike Hub phone app for cycling.

6. Stay close to the ground…
…and enjoy the ride on overland journeys that produce a fraction of the carbon of flying. Use the weatlth of timetables and tips on The Man in Seat Sixty-One website to plan flight-free trips worldwide.

7. Refashion your style
These days green fashionistas are spoilt for choice. Try TRAIDremade, Junky Styling or From Somewhere for new outfits made from old, or Ascension for new eco wear.

8. Ditch the theory and connect with nature every day…
…even if it’s just looking at the sky.

9. Get your hands dirty at least once a week
For hands-on outdoor experiences in a woodland setting come to Wilderness Wood in Sussex.

10. Enjoy the 21st-century Good Life
with Green & Black’s organic or Divine fairtrade chocolate and Juniper Green organic vodka. Perfect fuel for saving the world.

p.s. When I visited Eden I felt…
Envy! At some point in my life when I’m not quite so busy I plan to make a really beautiful garden. Eden has done it all so well already – I’ll have to kidnap one of their gardeners…

Joanna Yarrow is a consultant, broadcaster and writer specialising in green living. Founder Director of sustainability company Beyond Green, author of several books including 1,001 Ways You can Save the Planet and the eco expert on ITV’s Daybreak, she also runs Wilderness Wood, a sustainably managed 62-acre wood in Sussex.

Check out the Eden shop‘s collection of gorgeous eco products, from kitchenware to gardening equipment to clothes and jewellery.

If there is one square mile on planet Earth I had to save – aside from Twickenham rugby stadium of course (or HQ, as us unbearably pompous ex-public school types insist on calling it) – it’d be Aliwal Shoal in South Africa.

Imagine flying a small plane along the coast of Natal, a burning shore of beaches and mighty rivers passing the window in blur, and soon enough you’d fly over a relatively non-descript patch of ocean off the mouth of the Umkomaas River. Below your plane, though, beneath the water, lies a place as magical as any fantasy kingdom…

Aliwal Shoal is a mountain of sandstone rising from the seabed to jut into the blood-warm waters of the Benguela Current as it streams south along the African coast. This current is a conveyor belt for big animals, following timeless migratory routes that existed long before man emerged from the Rift Valleys, and will continue long after we have become another seam in the fossil record.

Because the mountain is sandstone, it has been worn away over millennia to become pockmarked with caves and caverns, honeycombed with tunnels, and pitted with crevices.

This is a realm of the great African sharks – the bull, the great white, the tiger, the hammerhead – that soar around its peak and glide along its reefs. Humpback whales pass overhead, turtles and dolphins break the surface, and rays fly over rock faces coated with life that come from both temperate and tropical waters.

Crammed onto and around this mountain top are more than 1,100 fish species, while corals and sponges jostle for position on rock faces exposed to great currents that roar like the jet stream shrieking past a mountain peak.

I’ve never found anywhere like it on Earth, never found a place that so typifies wild Africa, and that’s why Aliwal would be my choice.

As for the Eden Project, all I can do is wish you well, and tip my hat in admiration. May you have many, many more successful years doing your important work.

Monty Halls is a writer, explorer and television presenter, best-known for his Great Escape series. Diving is a passion of his; he runs diving trips and has written several books on the marine environment.

Find out about Eden’s conservation work in the Seychelles, a tropical island paradise under threat.