China is a global leader in the production of bamboo forest resources and the bamboo products processing industry. China's bamboo forests and industry play an important role in regional environmental protection and social economic development. This study analyzed the development of laws related to the bamboo industry and its related ecosystem in Chishui city, Guizhou Province, China, as an example. Chishui is referred to as "the hometown of bamboo in China" by the State Forestry Bureau in 1996 and 2006. The results show:(1) from a human perspective, there are five components of bamboo forest use including provision of ecological services, foods, medicines, timber products and cultural products. Bamboo processing involves three relative independent types of industries. The first type processes 47.3% of the bamboo forest resources produced in the city. It includes environmental protection and the harvest and processing of raw materials from bamboo. The second and third type involves nearly 200 bamboo-processing companies and 6 major industries that produce a wide variety of nearly 300 products requiring either minor or intense processing to create final products. (2) The five elements of the bamboo industry ecosystem include environmental resources, primary industry, exogenous industry, industrial support, and industrial innovation. Bamboo forest resources provide the main products for the primary industrial element and raw material for the exogenous industrial element. Bamboo forest resources are a component of, and are affected by, the environmental resources element. The industrial support element provides support services for infrastructure, finance, and businesses, that is, services for other industrial elements. The industrial innovation element provides innovative technology and institutional management for other industrial elements. These five elements interact and have different levels of importance with the following four states:the main state is the primary industrial element (I), the priority state to exogenous and primary industrial element (Ⅱ), the priority state to primary and exogenous industrial element (Ⅲ) and the main state of the exogenous industrial element (IV). Currently, the bamboo industry of Chishui city is overall in state Ⅱ with a trend of transforming from state Ⅱ to state Ⅲ, including a part of miscellaneous bamboo forest resources and processing. In recent years, output values of the bamboo exogenous industry element accounted for more than 40% of the GDP of the city, with an increasing trend from year to year. In 2014, the demand for moso bamboo resources was 7.94×10⁶ clumps, with actual consumption (3.04×10⁶ clumps)6 clumps). The demand for miscellaneous bamboo resources was 9.38×10⁵ t, with actual consumption (4.83×10⁵ t) ≤ viable primary production (5.0×10⁵ t). In addition, the output values of the primary, exogenous and support elements were 0.95×10⁹ Yuan, 2.85×10⁹ Yuan and 2.30×10⁹ Yuan, respectively. Meanwhile, the total output value of the bamboo industry ecosystem was 6.10×10⁹ Yuan. (3) Based on the interaction between each element and the state of the main processing factors, the development of the bamboo industry ecosystem of Chishui can be divided into four stages:① the primary development stage (prior to 1950) in state I, ② the manual use stage (1951-1980) in state I, with a transforming trend from state I to state Ⅱ of moso bamboo forest resources and processing, ③ the industrial use stage (1981-2000) in state Ⅱ, and ④ the system use stage (2001-present) in state Ⅱ, with a transforming trend from state Ⅱ to state Ⅲ of miscellaneous bamboo resources and processing. Currently, the development of the bamboo industry is expected to improve in scale and productivity in the primary industrial element, and rely on the industry innovation element to lead innovation within the bamboo industry.