IN THE mid-1990s, it felt that the Broad Initiatives for Negros Development (Bind) and my colleagues at the Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) are making voices in the wilderness.
Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) are defined as “all biological materials, other than timber, which is extracted from the forest for human use.”
I was the project manager of the community-based Forestry Management Agreement in Barangay Bagong Silang, Salvador Benedicto. It was the first CBFMA in Western Visayas.
Based on consultations with the people’s organization, I drafted the community resource development management plan where I included non-wood forest resources for utilization. In DENR language, these resources are called minor forest products, which I find pejorative.
Let’s face it, when Filipinos, especially the foresters, when they see the forests, they see the trees. And nothing much else.
The only economic resource can be found in timber utilization. No wonder the State is spending so many financial resources running after timber poachers.
Well, non-foresters are showing the foresters the second think on so-called “minor forest products.” Sun Star Bacolod last week reported that in an earnest desire of the provincial leaders to significantly reduce the demand for wood and wood products, Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. encouraged everyone to promote the use bamboo as an effective product substitute to wood to protect our trees, forest and ecosystem.
Amen to that. Capitol consultant and former governor Rafael Coscolluela said several years ago, the province started an initiative to promote bamboo as construction materials which can equally replace the use of wood, a deterrent to the continuous cutting of trees in our forests.
Bamboo product development was showcase at the Bamboo Village at Panaad Park to promote the use of bamboo, train people on how to become bamboo growers and manufacturers using creative designs fitting with the use of bamboo.
Marañon tapped Tumandok Crafts Industries and Philippine Design Development Center (PDCC) through its Regional Designer in presenting their “Asian Wood,” which is a collection of furniture, home decors, and accessories, luminaries and gifts using bamboo as the primary material. For years, bamboo is considered as a poor man’s lumber, he said.
Bamboo has come a long way since Bind-assisted mountain bamboo artisans in the cities of Bago, La Carlota and San Carlota has proposed bamboo ballpens for export to El Corte Ingles S.A., the biggest department store group in Europe and ranks fourth worldwide.
Civil society took the lead in bamboo product development for nearly twenty years. Now with this development, one of the minor forest products is now poised to join the major league. Praise God!*
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)