Potential of Ethiopian bamboo forests in biodiversity conservation, environment improvement and socio-economic development
2004
Kassahun Embaye
Bamboo is one of the world's greatest renewable resources that yield a multitude of high economic value products and services to human kind, and plays a vital role in ecological stability and biodiversity conservation. It interacts with the environment in many ways at fast rate, and thereby creates and maintains a productive, healthy and sustainable biological system. Bamboo is the fastest growing perennial grass with a tree stature that could provide food, forage and culm (woody stem) every year in large quantities for household and industrial use. Bamboo grows to tree size within three months and it culm attains sufficient strength for most structural uses within three years. These virtues of bamboo have never been appreciated and consequently the plant is little used in Ethiopia. Countries in Southeast Asia are adequately harnessing the potential of their bamboo resources. China earns billions of dollars annually from bamboo product exports; and its internal consumption is many folds higher than its exports. Ethiopia, as the most endowed country in bamboo resources in Africa, with 7% of the worlds bamboo forest cover, needs to strive to efficiently utilize the resource. The unique bamboo resources of Ethiopia are however, disappearing at an accelerating rate before their potentials are fully appreciated. These resources should therefore be conserved, expanded and used on sustainable basis to support the county's economy. This requires a well thought out strategy that can be implemented under the existing situation. This paper contrasted bamboo forests of Ethiopia against those of the whole of Africa and the world and described their growth behavior and their potential for socio-economic and environmental improvements. It also proposed a strategy for their conservation, expansion, sustainable management and utilization by drawing on the experience of Southeast Asian countries.
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