Count those – I did not realize so much value from the bamboo! The above is a quote, here is another from ANN on the website of the World Bamboo Organization, “World Bamboo Day” (Author Not Named, undated, Worldbamboo.net):
Since 2009, we have been celebrating World Bamboo Day to increase the awareness (on) bamboo globally. Where bamboo grows naturally, bamboo has been a daily element, but its utilization has not always been sustainable due to exploitation. The World Bamboo Organization aims to bring the potential of bamboo to a more elevated exposure – to protect natural resources and the environment, to ensure sustainable utilization, to promote new cultivation of bamboo for new industries in regions around the world, as well as promote traditional uses locally for community economic development.
It is estimated that there are more than two billion hectares – that is nearly 5 billion acres – of deforested and degraded land around the world waiting for human intervention to save it, to nourish it, and breathe new life into it. The health of our planet needs us to do something big – as soon as possible.
We should choose the bamboo for fast reforestation! Why?
Bamboo is resilient & adaptable – with immense biodiversity. Bamboo species can restore land. Their unique characteristics of quick growth, extensive root systems, and pioneer spirit can reduce erosion, stabilize slopes, absorb heavy metals, create shade, harbor wildlife, recycle carbon dioxide, and clean the air. Planting and managing sustainable bamboo forests (allow) for multiple social benefits, including rural development (improved housing), agroforestry products (list which includes nutritional food and alternative fiber), with the big bonus of climate mitigation.
Shock! 1975-1981, I was Editor In Chief of the 3 publications of the Forest Research Institute (FORI) based at UP Los Baños in Laguna: monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly color magazine Habitat– but, including my literature search on/for FORI articles, I never read anything about bamboos as rich as those 77 words I quoted above (with a little editing)!
Idea: Let’s grow bamboo in lowland and upland farms!
“Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times[2]” – Ping Fu, “A Life In Two Worlds,” Penguinrandomhouseaudio.com.
Filipino farms should be growing bamboos along the sides of eroding fields. The main crop is not the bamboo; it is only the protector of the soil growing the crops such as abaca, beans, cabbage, cassava, corn, lettuce, onion, peanut, pechay, potato, rice, strawberry, sweet potato, tomato etcetera – also fruit trees.
(PH flag-vegetables image[3] from Dreamstime.com)
Reinventing agroforestry: Food crops growing with bamboo protection! If the Filipinos show the world what the bamboo can do for agriculture, the world will follow our footsteps. Then the whole world can celebrate September each year as “Abundant World Bamboo-Crops Day.”@517
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