Bamboo may help the planet solve complex climate crisis

Here in Kenya, the government is on a mission to combat the negative effects of climate change, improve livelihoods and restore degraded landscapes.

It has set an ambitious goal of increasing its forest cover to 30 percent from 12.13 percent by 2032.

Kenyans have been urged to plant at least 50 trees on farms, degraded landscapes and in cities.

To achieve this, bamboo is being hailed as the silver bullet. Contrary to popular belief, bamboo is not a tree but a grass and is the fastest growing woody plant in the world.

In some areas, farmers have already ramped up their bamboo-growing efforts.

For tea farmers in Kiambu, bamboo offers an alternative source of income.

“There is a period of time when tea prices dropped very low and a lot of farmers found it very difficult to make ends meet and it coincided with the time when we learnt about the bamboo. So one of the things we have done is to start encouraging tea farmers that in the areas where they did not have tea, they can plant bamboo as an alternative source of income, because when tea prices go very low at least they have something to fall back on,” says Njoki Wainaina, a local farmer.

Bamboo can grow to a height of 100 feet within three years and matures for harvesting after five years.

A single bamboo produces multiple culms after planting. This attribute makes bamboo very attractive to farmers compared to exotic tree species as it offers multiple economic and environmental benefits.

“Imagine that you planted one tree, maybe a cedar or blue gum. In five years, you have one tree and it is not even big enough to do anything with it. But with the bamboo, in five years, you will have more than twenty culms and every time you cut it back it comes out stronger, bigger and it grows even faster,” says Wainaina.

It is also being considered as a source of fodder as well as an alternative to wood fuel, taking pressure off traditional tree species that may take decades to mature.

Farmers who have rivers crossing their farms have been encouraged to plant bamboo as it prevents soil erosion when planted along the rivers and improves water quality through purification.

“It has a very beautiful and very wide root system that helps to hold the soil, to trap the soil that is coming in the water but also to clean out the chemicals that are in the water. In this area, there is a lot of pollution of the rivers now and so the bamboos are acting as filters of the chemicals, the harmful chemicals that are in the water,” Wainaina explains.

Bamboo can also support cottage industries.

For a group of women from a non-governmental organization known as Back to Basics, bamboo offers an alternative source of income as they make products from bamboo which they sell.

“Nothing goes to waste when it comes to bamboo. You can conserve, you can use it for food, fodder for animals, you can use it for economic empowerment with the products we are making. So it is a holistic plant that really takes care of the environment and economic empowerment,” says Aisha Karanja, an environmentalist and founder of Back to Basics.

Kenya has one indigenous species of bamboo, the highland bamboo that

“Studieshave shown that bamboo is able to sequester thirty percent more carbon dioxide from the air than broad leafed tree species. And this is helping the country, that if we continue to plant more bamboo then it will help us even combat our carbon footprint so that it sequesters more over the country,” says Nellie Oduor, a wood scientist at Kenya Forest Research Institute.

Indigenous tree species grow at a much slower rate – ten times less than bamboo – according to KEFRI.

“This country has the target of 5.1 million hectares to restore degraded landscapes. Bamboo has also been given that space, that it can also be used for land restoration. Bamboo is a very good species for holding soil. So the river banks, protecting the river banks, degraded soils and landscapes, the gullies. You support those gullies so that we don’t have a lot of soil loss into those gullies,” says Oduor.

Proper planting of bamboo means placing them at intervals of 5 meters by 5 meters.

This leaves a 25-square-meter space between four bamboo plants, thus allowing for the introduction of native tree species.

“Once you have planted five meters apart from each other then you are able to control and you will not have that incident of them being invasive so to speak,” says Oduor.

By Rédaction Africanews