“A number of bamboo species are potential tools for carbonsequestration and combatting climate change,” Hans Friederich of theInternational Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR) reports.
The lowly bamboo –locally known as kawayan – does not contribute to the national economy, curb soil erosion, help food production, and provide food, it can also mitigate the impacts of climate change.
“Bamboo plants store carbon at a fast rate, and bamboo products can effectively ‘displace’ more emissions-intensive materials such as cement, steel and plastic,” Friederich points out.
Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change, has long been advocating the use and promotion of bamboo as a climate change mitigation and disaster resilience tool.
“Bamboo plays an important role in climate change mitigation as it absorbs more carbon dioxide and releases more oxygen into the atmosphere than trees,” the lady senator said in a press statement.
Recent INBAR research suggests that bamboo plantation, if well-managed, can store 200 to 400 tons of carbon per hectare per year. “With such high carbon storage rates, there is clearly potential for countries to integrate bamboo into their climate mitigation plans,” Friederich says.
Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, agrees. “Bamboo… can make an important difference in the fight against climate change,” she says. “Nature-based solutions like bamboo do not just contribute to sustainable development, they also help build the kind of world we want.”
Bamboos can be extensively grown in a wide range of habitats,from lowland to mountain forests in both dry and humid tropics, even on wastelands, swamps and dry or regularly flooded river banks.
Bamboo is a superb reforestationspecies due to its varied utility and importance in controlling soil erosionand stabilizing riverbanks. There are three main reasons why bamboo is asuperb crop for cogonal areas: both bamboo and cogon belong to the same plant family and so are compatible; bamboo grows faster and taller than cogon, and can quickly shade out the later; and bamboo is not killed when the cogonal area is burned accidentally or deliberately.
The bamboo venture is labor-intensive, especially during the first two years of operation. Studies have shown that labor alone accounts for roughly 90% of the total production cost. As such, it may help employ those living in the rural areas.
Bamboo matures in four to five years and growers and farmers can enjoy multiple harvests in the subsequent years. “If the bamboos survive,” says Roy C. Alimoane, director of the Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center Foundation, Inc., “you are assured of money for the next 30 to 50 years.”
Another good thing: the price of bamboo does not suffer from severe fluctuations unlike the prices of pork and chicken. In fact, they are priced depending on the diameter, volume, and distance traveled.
The Laguna-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) has recently come up with a package of technology for the combined bamboo shoot and pole production for kawayan-tinik.
Using the recommended technology, a one-hectare, 275-bamboo seedling plantation would be a profitable venture requiring an initial capital of P92,254.00. Income can be realized on the first year of harvest (five years after planting). The total initial capital can be recovered on the second year of harvest (year 6).
One Filipino farmer who believes in bamboo is Randy D. Fancubila, who was appointed by the Farmers Information and Technology Services Center of Dumalag, Capiz as farmer scientist.
Fancubila is recognized for his own enterprise. He has been into furniture making for 20 years. At one time, during a workshop, he displayed a dining table made of engineered bamboo, which he painstakingly made in his backyard.
He says he prefers to use bamboos for his furniture for several reasons. By using engineered bamboo slats, he adds value to the commodity and makes available a raw material which may even be better than wood. The use of bamboo also supports unsustainable agriculture. Every bamboo node cut for processing produces 3-6 other bamboo shoots.
As president of the Dumalag Bamboo Craft Producers, he has been exposed to various activities to improve his craft. He actively joins trainings and workshops on bamboo technologies. He had also joined various study tours and trainings related to bamboo and bamboo technology across the region and even in other parts of the country.
“Nothing seems impossible with technology,” Fancubila was quoted as saying. “It enables us to achieve faster and obtain more efficient results.”
Why is there a sudden craze for bamboo these days? “Bamboo is seen as a green product and a renewable resource in the developing world – more and more buyers are taking a closer look at bamboo as raw material,” said an official of the Department of Trade and Industry.
The role of bamboo in the construction field is equally
substantial. Hundreds of millions of people live in houses made from bamboo. In
Bangladesh, where 73% of the population live in bamboo houses, bamboo provides
pillars, walls, window frames, rafters, room separators, ceilings and
roofs. In Costa Rica, building with bamboo withstood earthquake which
buildings with other materials were unable to.
Throughout rural Asia, bamboo is used for building bridges, from the
sophisticated technology of suspension bridges to the simpler pontoon
bridges. Bamboo scaffoldings employed on the high-rise structures of
Tokyo and Hong Kong. Building with bamboo in Costa Rica withstood
earthquake which buildings with other materials were unable to.
In the Philippines, bamboo is also
indispensable in the fishing and banana industry. Fishermen use bamboo as
material for making rafts, fishing rods, outriggers for bancas, and for
fishpens. In salt-water areas, bamboo is used as stakes in the culture of
mussels and oysters.
Bamboo is also used in the manufacture of musical instruments like horns, clarinets, saxophones, flutes, piccolos, xylophones, and drums. In Java, Indonesia, 20 different musical instruments have been fashioned of bamboo. The world-famous bamboo organ at the Roman Catholic Church of Las Piñas is a historic example of the importance of bamboo.
There are also sophisticated uses of bamboos – charcoal for electric batteries, liquid diesel fuel obtained by distillation, and enzymes and media for shoot extracts used for culturing disease-causing bacteria. The white powder produced on the outer space of young culms for the isolation of a crystalline compound its medicinally useful. (To be concluded)
