A practical, applied microbiology and biotechnology model is presented for isolating and characterising micro-organisms, this being a tiny part of the immense biodiversity of tropical soils. These microbes' ability to produce depolymerases and accessory hydrolases degrading xyloglucans-pectates or glucoarabinoxylans is analysed to evaluate their potential for degrading plant material. We propose culturing micro-organisms on the cell wall as main carbon source and as hydrolitic activity inducer. The same cell walls can be used for cross-linking xylan and for rapid, low cost purification of cellulose and hemicellose degrading enzymes. A 500% xylanase purification yield was obtained in a single step with these affinity supports. Out of the 65 isolates obtained were finally selected for characterising isoenzymes for cellulase and xylanase activities. The five strains are suggested as being potentially useful in different industrial processes regarding degrading cellulose and hemicellulose. Key words: Cellulase, hemicellulase, affinity chromatography, cross-linked substrate, microbiological diversity, composting