Food & Trees for Africa exhibited their Bamboo for Africa programme at South Africa's first ever Bamboo Symposium. Agronomy and inventive community planting programs, home and office products, as well as energy products and equipment, to show the full value cycle of this versatile plant were presented.
Bamboo is a grass and is the fastest growing plant on the planet with around 1 500 essential uses, besides being an excellent carbon sequestrator and thus an effective tool to address carbon offset, sustainable community and economic development, and much more. The Bamboo for Africa programme has also recently announced its Verified Carbon Standard registration.
The Eastern Cape Bamboo Symposium and Exhibition on 11th and 12th August, hosted by the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC), featured renowned bamboo experts and traders from prestigious universities and organisations around the world. The symposium followed ECDC identifying bamboo as a possible vehicle for job creation and poverty alleviation in rural Eastern Cape. The panelists unpacked business opportunities stemming from bamboo and scientific properties of bamboo. ECDC has taken the initiative of planting bamboo and would like to explore avenues such as clean energy. The purpose of the event hosted by ECDC was to raise awareness on bamboo as a catalyst for agriculture development, creation of downstream industries and an alternative energy source.
FTFA was proud to be the only social enterprise present. Many guest speakers stressed the diverse qualities of bamboo, from being one of the fastest growing plants on the planet to the 1500 uses that it has. FTFA focuses on the carbon sequestration factors, enterprise opportunities and creating sustainable communities.
FTFA had the opportunity to speak to many community members and work through their questions and desires of the potential project.
Says Mary-Ann Fairall, Bamboo for Africa Programme Manager,"It is very exciting to see South Africans finally taking charge of their country and their people. We have seen the remarkable abilities of this plant and its life changing impacts, and now we are making it our own "
The Bamboo for Africa Team
