CAPIZ – The province of Capiz has a target of 5,321 hectares for the establishment of bamboo plantation in view of the Enhanced National Greening Program (ENGP) of the government, said Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) – Capiz provincial head Ruel Delos Reyes.
“We are tasked to develop our idle forest lands into bamboo plantations,” Reyes said during a recent convergence project launching in Barangay Putian in Cuartero town, adding that Capiz got the biggest share of the estimated 13,000 hectares for the bamboo planting program in Western Viasayas.
He added that DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu wanted the region to be the bamboo capital of the country. A bamboo factory in the island of Panay is also being planned out by Cimatu to cater to the bamboo logs yield out of the plantation in the next couple of years.
Last January, Department of Trade and Industry Secretary and Philippine Bamboo Industry Council chairman Ramon Lopez committed assistance to the local bamboo industry.
Lopez said that part of his plans was to have “plant-to-market” roads to ease the delivery of bamboo from the plantation to buyers. This kind of infrastructure will be a big help particularly in remote areas.
Bamboos are good replacement of hardwood construction materials and can be a source of charcoal, textile, food, furniture, and transportation. It also absorbs greenhouse gases in line with the climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.
The ENGP aims to rehabilitate about 1.2-million hectares of denuded forest lands by 2022 and maintain and protect existing forests nationwide. (With a report from PIA)/PN
