The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Roy Cimatu has repeated his call on the planting and using bamboo as wood alternative in hopes of increasing the country’s forest cover.
He said the government has already taken initiatives in using bamboo under its flagship reforestation plan under the Expanded National Greening Program (ENGP).
“Our effort now is to plant bamboo and probably in five to six years, we can harvest it to make it a wood substitute,” Cimatu was quoted in a report.
“Instead of cutting the trees in the forest, we will use bamboo. So, this is really a shifting strategy,” he added.
Approximately 20 percent of the ENGP plantation site are currently dedicated for bamboo plantations, however the secretary aims to increase this to at least 40 percent.
Cimatu said they are slowly shifting to bamboo plantation to aggressively improve the country’s forest cover.
“We want to double it so we will accelerate bamboo plantation,” he added.
Cimatu explained that “engineered” bamboo can be used as a substitute to traditional hardwood building materials, making it possible not to cut trees in the forest.
Participating in the ENGP are Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. and SteelAsia Foundation Inc., after they signed a memorandum of agreement with the DENR.
