From how it is described and explained in information campaign sorties in the city, bamboo is coming off as a wonder grass and is seen as the next timber of the 21st century, crucial in assuring food sufficiency and an effective disaster mitigating tool.
Baguio City stakeholders are being tapped to consider bamboo as a main tool in reinventing its livelihood, aesthetic, agriculture, environment, and disaster preparedness and mitigation efforts and policies.
In its continuous information campaign about the benefits of propagating bamboo in the city, the Philippine Bamboo Foundation expressed appreciation as some groups and city officials are finally starting to recognize the advantages of bamboo.
PBF President Edgardo Manda and Councilor Leandro Yangot on Wednesday said the PBF and the city government will create a technical working group that will lead in the establishment of a framework that will explore how bamboo could figure in the city’s development.
Manda said they are keen on discussing such concept in the city to convince its constituents to recognize the suitability of Baguio’s topography for bamboo propagation, so eventually these can be used in stepping up the barangays’ livelihood and the city’s re-greening and disaster management efforts.
Based on PBF’s exploration and researches, Manda said Baguio’s weather and environment are suitable for many species of bamboo, a kind of grass that is easy to grow and could produce useful and better quality timber.
“We foresee bamboo as the next timber as we no longer have trees to use due to the total log ban policy and the National Greening Program of the government. All our logs are now either imported or smuggled. Most, mainly the manufacturers and exporters of products with wood component, are in panic because of shortage of wood for their products,” he said.
But with bamboo, and if more would be involved in its production, engineered bamboo can be produced and used in place of the usual timber from trees.
In terms of agriculture, Manda said bamboo is a food source for its shoots, locally known as rabong, the consumption of which brings an equivalent of P15 billion for bamboo propagators in China, where it is widely produced and used.
Manda said bamboo leaves’ extracts, as well, can be used as raw material in making wines, beer, soaps and other beauty products in China.
Yangot said the creation of the TWG for bamboo is an acknowledgment of its potentials, which have long been ignored.
He said it may help the city’s barangays and indigenous communities have a profitable source of livelihood supplying the needs of local and international markets.
Bamboo is also seen an effective disaster mitigating tool for areas like Baguio that is prone to landslides and erosion.
“They have shown us several areas where they use bamboo to control erosion. Probably we can replicate it in Baguio,” he said.
Yangot, who chairs the city council’s committee on lands, said many open spaces in the city, instead of being squatted on, could be transformed into bamboo forests and help in beautification efforts and clearing the city’s air of poisonous gases.
“I believe this is one way of regenerating Baguio, which has not introduced something new lately. For a change, let us put greenery along the routes toward the city instead of buildings and structures,” he said.