The City Environment and Natural Resources Officer of Puerto Princesa City said that subsidizing bamboo industry in the locality will provide enabling environment for the industry especially the bamboo farmers and contribute to the increase in local economic activities.
Atty. Carlo B. Gomez, the City ENRO Officer in his lecture to the bamboo stakeholders during the formulation workshop of the Bamboo Industry Roadmap spearheaded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently, he proposed that the government’s budget through an institutionalized financing program should support the bamboo industry to encourage people to plant bamboos and engage in bamboo production and marketing.
People especially the local farmers will be enticed to plant bamboos and engage in the production and trading of bamboo products with the presence of such support from the government. The LGUs can also support the bamboo industry sector significantly by looking for buyers and potential business partners, therefore facilitating the market for the locally-produced bamboo products.
He is also pushing for structural and institutional reforms in order to simplify the processing of permits and other required documents to allow transport and marketing of bamboo products.
Presently, entrepreneurs in the bamboo industry sector are faced with voluminous requirements from the different agencies of the government including the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), and the local government units (LGUs) such as City/ Municipal and Barangays.
Atty. Gomez said that these “bureaucratic cages” are considered inconsistent to the government’s intention to simplify transactions, specifically for the bamboo industry sector. Streamlining and coming up with a prototype process will provide an enabling environment for the industry and encourage the sector and prospective investors to engage into bamboo production and marketing.
“Bamboo is a grass anyway, wag na nating pahirapan pa ang nasa bamboo industry”, he said.
The Office of the City ENRO and the City Agriculture’s Office proposed for the Bamboo Farm and Industry Project in a 20-hectare area within the portion of the Environmental Estate in Barangay Sta. Lucia. This proposed project has three components namely; Bamboo Farming, Bamboo Production/Manufacturing and Bamboo Marketing.
The project aimed to uplift the economic conditions of the communities and will support the Economic Recovery Program of the City, increase carbon sequestration by protecting the existing Bamboo Plantation site from fire incidence and indiscriminate cutting, upgrade air quality within the City’s airshed, improve the soil quality of the project site, and enhance the aesthetic beauty of the Environmental Estate.
Aside from providing livelihood to substantial number of local farmers in the city, the bamboo farming can help minimize the incidence of cutting of forest trees and mangroves as source of firewood and lumber.
“As our City being faced with this pandemic and many of our residents are dependent in tourism industry, which went down, we have to offer them alternative source of income in order for them to have economic recovery. When our people earn, our local economy increases. Thus, one of the major industries that we can offer to support is the institutionalization of bamboo farm”, the project brief reads.
The proposed Bamboo Farm and Industry Project of the City is also expected to generate more income from the industry, provide livelihood opportunities and provide source of lumber in the city.
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