Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Buglas Bamboo Institute redefining bamboo
By Jimmy P. Abayon
PROUD and tall, they stand, more than 800,000 poles of them all over Negros Oriental. They are the humble bamboo, so familiar in the rural areas but at times neglected and their importance to socio-economic development and the ecology quite ignored.
A survey made by the Ecosystems and Research Bureau (ERB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) estimates that there are 62 species of bamboos growing in the Philippines. But it seems, the survey said, only 21 species are endemic to the country.
Apparently the Philippines have more climbing bamboos than erect ones meaning the type of species available affects the supply of poles for commercial use.
In Negros Oriental two species, the tunokon and butong are prevalent. Other varieties like the climbing bamboo are also found.
Commercially though, the economic potentials of these species have not been fully tapped. The bamboo industry in the province is small-time, mostly aimed at traditional household demands for furniture, fences, beds, aparador, and in most cases, especially in the countryside, bamboo houses.
Koerkamp
It took Dutch missionary Frans Kleine Koerkamp and a Filipino entrepreneur Nelson Estrabela to change the picture and redraw the map of the economic potentials of the bamboo in the domestic and global markets.
Koerkamp is married to Melvin Rabelista, a Filipina from Escalante, Negros Occidental. They have two children, Jobert and Monette. Growing up in the Netherlands in the 1930's was so difficult, he said.
It was a time of severe depression and volatile socio-economic situation, a condition that helped prop Adolf Hitler into power in Germany.
The war and its aftermath devastated his country's socio-economic and political structure.
But he took solace in his religious studies. Through classical literature, he found in Virgil's Aenid the line that has since then guided his service to humankind: "Since I'm familiar with misery, I have learned to help the miserable."
Koerkamp came to the Philippines in 1964 as a religious missionary. He later joined different non-government organizations and studied the human rights situation in the country.
From 1980 to 1993 he conducted a study of the impact of Dutch development organization programs in the country. In 1994 he and his wife transferred to Dumaguete City from Manila and subsequently joined the Buglas Integrated Rurban Development, a now defunct non-government organization active in community work.
His studies eventually exposed him to bamboo and how this lowly plant could become a main resource for development in the rural areas.
What particularly interested him about bamboo is the pest, locally known as bukbok, which infests the bamboo because of its rich starch content and how to treat it.
It was time to act, Koerkamp said.
"I was tired of talking and talking and hearing other people talk," the missionary said.
Between 1994 and 2000, Koerkamp and Estrabela collected data and information, researched, and lay the groundwork for their planned Buglas Bamboo Institute. The institute began its operational life at a time when the only major bamboo industry in Negros Oriental folded up.
Why bamboo?
Bamboo is the most available, abundant resource available in the countryside that could be tapped by rural communities to preserve village life, the missionary said.
Koerkamp noted that based on a survey his group conducted, land, particularly in southern Negros Oriental are so much subdivided.
"Young people see no future in the barrios, so they flow out to urban areas for jobs," he said.
There should have been no need for the exodus if resource potentials were developed in rural communities. One of these is the bamboo.
"There is plenty of bamboo in the province that waits to be used," he said.
Moreover, Koerkamp said, countries like China and Vietnam have multimillion- dollar businesses out of bamboo. The Philippines, has none, he lamented.
"If they can do it, why can't we?" the BBI executive director said during the inauguration of the institute's center in Barangay Maayong Tubig, Dauin, 22 kilometers from Dumaguete City early this month.
Based on his study, each of the province's 557 barangays has an average of 150 bamboo groves capable of producing 10 ready-to-be harvested poles a year. All in all, Negros Oriental has the capacity to harvest an average of 835,500 poles a year.
Koerkamp said BBI processes only 30,000-35,000 poles a year, a tiny dent and concentrated only in ten barangays of Valencia, Bacong, Dauin, Zamboanguita, and Siaton.
After treating them, BBI transforms these poles into furniture, accessories, engineered bamboo, bamboo huts, and bamboo slats.
Since 2000, BBI has breached the world market for bamboo products. The international markets include Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Ireland, England, Spain, Ukraine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, the U.S., and recently, Israel, Brazil, Venezuela, and Bolivia.
Last year, BBI realized P4 million sales, more than half of which came from exports. But it is expected considering that the operation is quite young. This year though, Koerkamp expects a rapid increase in earnings because of the opening of new markets and the newfound stability of the institute.
One positive sign of a brighter prospect this year is the long-range commitment of Fil Veneer, a Cebu-based bamboo product manufacturer, to buy 150,000 slats from BBI in different shipment schedules.
"We cannot fulfill the order in one shipment alone, but the firm has agreed to get the supply from BBI," Koerkamp said.
Bukbok-free
The market interest for BBI's bamboo product is its bukbok free condition.
Aside from observing folk advice to harvest bukbok-free bamboo only during months (in the Cebuano dialect) that end in "o," the institute follows a tedious process of treating harvested poles.
The institute uses the findings of a Dutch graduate student who wrote a doctoral thesis on bukbok, the first applicable research on the how and whys of the pest that destroys bamboo products.
After cutting and clearing a pole, sliced parts are rubbed with an anti-pest substance to prevent infiltration. It is then hauled onto a cargo truck and brought to BBI's treatment center in Maayong Tubig, Dauin. There the cargo is submerged to a borax and boric acid solution for two-weeks. Next, the pole is dried for another two weeks.
Presto! The product is a guaranteed mature, dry, and treated bamboo.
"BBI produces bamboo that is 100 percent treated. But, since it is a living material, we cannot give a 100 percent guarantee," the executive director said.
Helping the miserable
However, more remains to be done for bamboo to be appreciated as a significant resource and to be understood by village folks as an answer to preserve community life.
Koerkamp said his early life in Holland was miserable. From that experience, he has dedicated his life to help the miserable. And in BBI, he has found the answer to the question on how to help the people in rural communities.
BBI organized communities in the ten barangays supplying bamboo to the institute. It has also upped the cost of each bamboo pole to encourage folks to take a second look at the ignored bamboo groves as an important source for earnings.
No, the institute does not buy bamboo from rich landlords. Its focus is the ordinary rural folk to improve their income.
Alongside community organization, lectures are being conducted to educate the people on the social, economic, and ecological significance of the bamboo.
"It is an important resource against soil erosion," Koerkamp said. It is used extensively as an indigenous material for soil and water conservation technologies, says DENR's ERB.
"Check dams use woven bamboo strips between the pegs while bush or stones are placed against the dam's upper side. In protecting river or stream banks, bamboo can be planted to stabilize water while holding the soil in place while reducing water flow," the ERB said.
In fact, the plant plays so big role in many Philippine ceremonies, traditions, and beliefs. Dances like tinikling, singkil, and subli revolve around this plant. And of course, the Filipino has to read only of the Visayan myth of the first Filipino man and woman to understand the significant place bamboo has in Filipino life.
Yet out there in the hinterlands, the plant is largely ignored.
"Filipino appreciation remains low," Koerkamp lamented.
But, all these may change, gradually.
BBI, a member of the estimated 30-member Philippine Bamboo Foundation, will organize a Philippine Bamboo Congress in Dumaguete City in November.
Hopefully, the Dutch missionary said, the congress will be able to evolve a program to encourage Filipinos to appreciate their bamboo legacy.
(April 13, 2006 issue)
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