The Minister of Agriculture, Óscar Guardado, reported that as part of the strategies of the government of President Nayib Bukele to ensure environmental sustainability, the country is advancing in the implementation of the National Bamboo Plan.
«There will be a whole bamboo program at the national level, zero plastics and caring for the environment. We will make a green agenda to produce food while taking care of the environment », he expressed.
One of the institutions involved in this plan is the Salvadoran Institute for Agrarian Transformation (ISTA), through which a nursery or germplasm bank has been created that will allow quality plants to be obtained.
According to the head of the nursery, Salomón Linares, this strategy will serve as an important incentive to protect the environment due to the suitability of the bamboo plant to replace raw materials used for the production of basic necessities.
“With the development of the bamboo nursery, we are committed to establishing commercial and structural plantations in order to process and elaborate wood to replace those products that affect and damage the environment; in this way, we launch the National Bamboo Plan,” said ISTA.
The government has also highlighted the use of bamboo for other purposes, such as soil erosion control in vulnerable areas, such as the one carried out last year in the IVU neighborhood of San Salvador, near the Arenal River.
In that area, more than 250 bamboo plants were planted to prevent landslides that occur in the area during the rainy season.
“Apart from serving as a living barrier, the community may give it other uses, such as for handicrafts or as a substitute for wood for some activity inside their homes,” he said. Something more important is that in environmental terms it is used as carbon fixation, which contributes to climate change because it purifies the air,” explained the coordinator of Forest Resources of the General Directorate of Forest Management, Basins, and Irrigation of the MAG, Amílcar López.