Every year, September 18 is observed as the World Bamboo Day by the World Bamboo Organisation, in order to generate awareness about conserving and promoting the bamboo.

Bamboo – one of the fastest growing renewable natural resource is today widely acclaimed as the super material of the 21st century. It has immense economic potential given its diverse use. Bamboo is a good substitute to wood in mitigating pressure on natural forests. Bamboo is a family of grass – it matures in as little as 3 to 5 years much faster than hardwood trees which can take 20 years or more to reach maturity. It sends out new shoots after each harvest. It has unrivalled capacity to capture carbon and reclaims land. It protects steep slopes, soils and water ways, prevents soil erosion.

This year INBAR celebrated World Bamboo Day at its Secretariat in Beijing with a seminar on Bamboo Sector Development Initiatives in the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC). Representatives of many of INBAR’s LAC member countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela), plus Mexico and the UK, as well as construction experts from the INBAR-initiated bamboo housing expert group, attended the seminar and shared experiences of the rapid development of bamboo in their regions.

Alvaro Cabrera, INBAR’s Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean informed of INBAR’s recent initiative- a platform to which many different stakeholders from the private sector to government, university researchers to producers were invited to collaborate for various usages of bamboo. One such initiative, “Bamboo Housing”, was launched in Peru and Ecuador. Colombia, which has long used bamboo as a construction material, provided experts who shared information and techniques with over 800 carpenters and constructors and trained them to use bamboo for building. The initiative has been a huge success and has providing a legal basis for construction using bamboo by introducing building codes, improved post-harvest processing to add value to bamboo poles, linked farmers and producers with designers, to come up with more marketable furniture products, and trained thousands of horticulturists and foresters in best practices of bamboo growing and harvesting.

Many more such success stories were shared at the seminar to promote their adoption in the global community.

Closer home, World Bamboo Day 2019 was celebrated in Imphal under the aegis of Bamboo Forum of India (BFI) and South Asia Bamboo Foundation (SABF).

On the occasion, Lok Sabha MP Dr R K Ranjan from Manipur expressed the need to popularize bamboo and understand its sustainable utility together as the livelihood of 70 per cent of state’s population is associated with bamboo-based activities.

Deputy Chairman (Planning Board) S Rajen and Chairperson Anwar Hussain of Manipur State Minorities Commission also spoke on the occasion.

Five bamboo pioneers from Manipur including Wildlife warden of Manipur’s Tamenglong district Nehemiah Panmei; Namgyal Durbuk – green activist from Ladakh; L Bhubol Singh (Bambbo handicraft), Kh Ibomcha (Bamboo furniture) and Ancha Maring (Bamboo crafts) were honoured during the celebrations. Haobam Sukumar, man behind the WBD celebration in Imphal was also among the persons honoured on the day. Release of the WBD celebration souvenir, Bamboo flute recital, and display of bamboo made products and lunch with bamboo dishes were the main highlights of this year’s celebration.

Inputs by Tina Singh Das