By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat

The Departments of trade and Industry and Natural and Environment have agreed to enjoin mining companies to plant bamboos as part of their rehabilitation program to restore their mined areas into productive agriculture sites.

Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez, who saw twin purpose on the use of bamboos not just to rehabilitee mined areas but as a good source of livelihood, said DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu was open to instructing mining companies to work out a sustainable mining development using bamboo planting as part of their rehab plans.

Mining companies have vast tracts of land that need rehabilitation and they have the funds (mandated allocation from their operational expenses) for rehab use. Bamboo on the other hand grows fast, also a strong carbon absorption, effective for anti-soil erosion and more importantly has the ability to make the mined areas restore its condition for agriculture purposes.

On the industry side, Lopez noted that bamboo rehabilitation activities can be a good livelihood source for the communities in mining areas.

From the bamboo industry cluster perspective, Lopez said the rehab program will solve the bamboo supply problem needed in the growing demand for bamboo based products, from poles to panels, finer boards, lumber, handicrafts, food, beverage, modern furniture, clothing , fabric, paper, flooring and many more.

Also as part of the bamboo development plan, we need to supply the classroom tables and chairs for DepEd, which is currently underserved due to lack of bamboo material supply.

There are only about five million culms, but the demand is more than 20 million culms. Currently only about 10t hectares are planted with bamboo but there are about 300,000 hectares of mined areas that can be rehab with bamboo.

“Cimatu and I believe that presenting this mining rehab plan using bamboo can meet the requirement of the President to have a clear and sustainable mining development plan and the rehab plan special for open pit mining activities,” Lopez said.

“This is a great win win win program that addresses many issues – greening of mined areas, livelihood program for micro, small, and medium enterprises to produce high value products. This is a big help in poverty alleviation,” he said.