PROPOSAL FOR DEVELOPMENT AND PROTECTION OF SAPA BUHI AS CONSERVATION AREA FOR DOMESTICATION AND IMPROVEMENT OF BAMBOO SPECIES AT MALUAO, PIGCAWAYAN, COTABATO
MAIN PROPONENT: Rimmon A. Paren
Bamboo Industry Development Advocate
INTRODUCTION
Bamboo is a wonderful gift of nature. Bamboo species are giant, woody, tree-like grasses and have a long history as a versatile and widely used renewable resource. Especially in Pigcawayan Municipality, bamboos provide construction material for shelter, tools and implements for agriculture, and materials for many handicrafts. Besides these versatile uses, man, probably from pre-agricultural times, used bamboo for food. In addition, bamboo conserves soil and re-greens eroded slopes.
Many cultural traditions in rural areas are intimately connected with bamboo. Likewise, Sapa Buhi Creek is the only creek that provides water to Maluao River down to the low-lying areas of Barangay Maluao last dry spell of El Niño of 2007 and 2009.
Background /Statement of the Problem
Except for homestead cultivation, bamboos have rarely been planted in the forests. Consequently, foresters do not have adequate knowledge of bamboo forestation or reforestation. With the present opportunity, information pointed out that 2.5 billion people worldwide depend on or use bamboo to a value of US$7 billion per year. The estimate is conservative.
On local scenario, for people of Barangay Maluao, bamboo is still the best alternative in the absence of timber. Way back 1990’s; Sapa Buhi was flourishing with life, crabs (kagang), dalag, hito and “sigwil” can be caught for viand. The proponent could hear the flying squirrel cawing from the top of a Lawaan tree before it leaps to another tall tree. Today, all these creatures are slowly vanishing and the Flying Squirrel had not cawed again for at least 20 years now, the biodiversity of Sapa Buhi was destroyed with slash and burn farming, poisoning and lack of protective measures to prevent those irreversible damages done against nature.
Project Description
To be able to restore the Sapa Buhi to its nearly original state, a serious move should be done like reforestation. But we need to be selective on the forest material we choose. Current problem arises like Global Warming, Poverty and Disaster (Typhoons and Flood) needs to be addressed the same. According to study, bamboo is best suited to coup with these three major catastrophes, Climate Change damage is irreversible after ten years or more, by 2020, if the Green House Gases will not be lowered down to a most minuscule amount, our grandchildren will be experiencing frequent heat waves, floods, longer dry spell, super typhoons and the likes.
Bamboo can grow to its full maturity in 5 years time, clocked at 1.2 meters growth per day, and by doing our share to sequester carbon dioxide, mitigating climate change by planting bamboo is a commendable action. We cut into half the timeline of the Global Catastrophe in the year 2020.
Barangay Maluao is where we can feel the angst of poverty, scarcity of food, lack of financial capability to buy high price of farm inputs while crops that are harvested are bought at diminutive price. When water rises at Maluao River, the palay which was the only source of food was frequently destroyed. Much of this cynical thoughts could enliven the memories blamed to poverty, and the proponent had seen the window of opportunity through the bamboo grass, Nakayama Technologies of Digos City is looking for a supplier of Apos and Botong variety of Bamboo at least 7,000 poles per month or 252,000 poles for three years time and onward.
This of course could convert these bamboos into cash plus the opportunity of the Barangay Residents to be employed in the NODE which is a pre-processing area of the materials to be supplied to the buyer. And the Global Demand of Bamboo of 23 million tons per year, which means the potential market for the bamboo grown from Maluao.
Disasters like flood and categories 4 and 5 typhoons frequently lambasting the economy of the rural folks, bamboo is the best proactive defense. With the capacity of the bamboo to grow rapidly, which means need more water for growth, it will likely slows down the torrential rainwater in rushing to the lowlands and the tensile strength to bend without breaking, it is a superior windbreak and as well as firebreak for forestall areas.
Nonetheless, bamboo had resolved the Global Warming, Poverty and Disaster, three major issues encountered by other provinces and rural areas like Abra and Iloilo Province. There are known as Bamboo Capital of the Philippines, South Cotabato is celebrating a 7 days festivity with bamboo as the major celebrant. Maluao could do the same if the project could be realized.
A double quincunx alongside of the Sapa Buhi of Apos Variety of Bamboo is the solution. Quincunx method is best suited for riverbank stabilization to avoid those bamboos be carried away by the flood since the roots are tightly knitted together because of the quincunx planting technique.
An Analysis of Bamboo Development Venture at Maluao
Strength
Environmentally, the activity of producing bamboo products does not disturb the balance of the natural environment, since the primary natural resource used is bamboo, which regenerates rapidly, and all other sources of energy are fully renewable.
Weakness
Village farmers have knowledge of bamboo cultivation on a limited scale, based mostly on personal experiences and not on systematic scientific studies. The situation calls for immediate attention to more scientific cultivation and mass reproduction to meet increasing demands for planting materials. Since production is influenced by temperature, precipitation and soil, annual output of bamboo sometimes fluctuates within wide margins. Also large-scale death of bamboo clumps from gregarious flowering affects production. In general, the yield of bamboo varies depending upon the intensity of stocking and biotic interference from 0.2 to 4.0 t/ha, and in most cases is not very encouraging.
Opportunity
Bamboos have long been cultivated in villages, and the rural poor are the principal users of bamboo. Almost 80 percent of bamboo gets used locally. Previously, bamboo formed a perpetual resource because of its vigorous vegetative growth. But at present, overexploitation associated with growing human population, destruction of tropical forests and new demands on the resources for industrial uses (especially by the plywood, pulp and paper industry) have together contributed to severe loss of forestall areas and bamboo stock from the once sprawling bamboo clumps in Pigcawayan. Much of the land of homestead forests in rural areas are being converted to houses and rice fields to house and feed the growing population.
The alarming rate of deforestation has also accelerated genetic erosion, especially in areas of indigenous bamboo diversity, in our country. There is an urgent need for development of a bamboo resource base through a massive program of improved planting stocks. Improvement of bamboo through genetic enhancement has hardly been thought of, and the potential in this field is enormous. Nursery development will be of great opportunity for income generation.
A bamboo plantation is a major tourist attraction since the environment is generally cool and serene, a good relaxation and camping site.
Threats
Many countries have been forced to severely restrict - and in some cases even ban outright - the harvesting and exporting of bamboo, resulting in the loss of potentially great economic opportunities. The greatest losses are borne by rural people, as a once abundant and cheap resource is now becoming scarce and expensive. Among the threats are skeptics who will oppose the program and will offer alternative like palm oil and rubber, and other high value crops which does not genuinely provide a real opportunity for poverty reduction.
Bamboo is more susceptible to bio-deteriorating agents as compared to timber. These agents include fungi, termites, and especially insect borers such as powder post beetles. Bamboos stored for use in paper mills are liable to attack by insect pests and fungi. It has been estimated that a loss of about 22 percent in wood substance occurs during storage. Bamboo Preservation Method should be introduced.
BUDGET
A three kilometer stretch or more of double quincunx plantation of Apos Bamboo alongside and both side of Sapa Buhi would cost Php 494, 544.00 if the planting material is to be bought at 80.00 per “seedling”, inclusive of the expenses for labor and fertilizer. This could be implemented in three years program, starting at year 2011 which would spend 160,000.00 annually. For the cost will have an increment of 3% per year, 2nd year expenditure would come up into 164,800.00 and third year of program implementation would sum up into 169,744.00 – total would be 494,544.00.Nursery preparation would start on January 2011 for the onset of rainy season, after 4-5 months the planting materials are now ready. 3 kilometer stretch needs 600 single line bamboo seedlings = a double quincunx needs 5 lines – 600 x 5 = 3,000 seedlings = 3,000 seedlings x 80.00 (inclusive labor & Fertilizer) = 240,000.00 X 2 sets of lines = Php 480,000.00.
Objectives of an Improvement and Development Program of Bamboo at Maluao
Selective breeding of commercial bamboo as forest crops is a development of the 20th century, with most of the activities taking place in its second half. The history of genetic improvement of bamboos is recent and started only about 30 years ago, FOBAR in Japan by Etsuzo Uchimura and Ministry of Science and Technology in China, and more recently in the Indian subcontinent. However, the activities have not yet led to the breeding of bamboo. Moreover, the bamboo plantation alongside the Sapa Buhi is for Water Conservation Purposes and since we could still harvest matured bamboo from the conservation area, the symbiosis of man and nature completes the cycle without damaging the environment. Continuous training on the product development of the bamboo as finished material for furniture, mat board, wallpaper, crafts plus the income it could generate to the rural folks trough the NODE which will process the raw material for the Nakayama Technologies.
A program is needed to:
- Access available knowledge of bamboo production, breeding and improvement activities in the barangay.
- Search for socially useful and economically profitable new bamboo genotypes(e.g apos, moso, guadua); and
- Develop clonal techniques for mass propagation (future plans).
Expected outputs and beneficiaries
Increased bamboo production largely means the improvement of bamboo clumps in villages and also partly in government-owned national forests. As no systematic study on the selection of elite bamboo genotypes has so far been undertaken in tropical Asia, enormous potential for improvement exist. The annual productivity of bamboo plantations per hectare could be increased by selecting and multiplying superior genotypes for specific end-use. As bamboo is a fast-growing and quickly harvested crop, the output would be visible within 2-3 years of planting superior genotypes.
The main beneficiary will be the rural poor. However, standard technologies for the production of quality propagules/seedlings will be needed. Women in particular need to know how to run bamboo nurseries and to earn money by selling planting stocks.
Progress in these areas will directly influence the economy of rural area, by improving the bamboo resource base. Village people will receive socio-economic benefits through supplying materials at cheap rates, and through generating employment both in harvesting and cottage industries.
Bamboos are extensively used as raw material in the pulp and paper industries and for rayon mills. Many pulp mills in India and Bangladesh are, at present, running below the optimum level of production because of the lack of raw materials. Species, provenances or clones having excellent qualities for pulping would increase the production of the mills and, as a result, the price of paper and paper products could decrease.
China, Thailand and the Philippines have many food industries based on bamboo shoots. In some cases, bamboo shoots have a higher cash value than rice. Thailand alone earns approximately US$30 million and China US60 million through export, meeting about 18 percent of Japan’s canned bamboo shoot requirement. New bamboo clones to improve the quality and quantity of edible shoots would enhance the earnings of farmers and canning industries.
- Evaluation Plan:
| | Results-Output | Results-Outcome | Results-Impact | Gaps, Issues, & Problems |
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