Our Correspondent
Imphal, Sep. 20 (EMN): In a move to showcase the importance of bamboo and its uses to the global audience, South Asia Bamboo Foundation (SABF) has announced plans to set up a World Bamboo Day museum for the first time in the Northeast.
“The idea of the World Bamboo Day museum is to celebrate the bamboo museum in Manipur so that what is happening around the world can be displayed in the museum,” said Chief Executive Officer Kamesh Salam of SABF.
The construction of a bamboo museum is said to begin by the end of this year at Patsoi in Imphal West district.
Kamesh Salam was speaking to this reporter on the sideline of the 13th World Bamboo Day celebration which was observed in Manipur on Sep. 18.
When asked about the modality of the museum, Kamesh Salam who is also the founder of World Bamboo Day said, ‘we will be having a digital museum to start with so that the people can see it digitally. Physically we will have products from different countries in the museum. Supposing Japan, what products they made, what technologies, we will try to display in the museum’.
According to the bamboo community in Manipur, only about 10 bamboo species including Saneibi, Khok, Watang, Maribob species are available out of 55 bamboo species found in Manipur and 86 species in Northeast are suitable for housing purposes even though other species are fit for walling, etc. Northeastern states contribute 54 percent of India’s bamboo production.
It may be mentioned that SABF and Manipur Cycle Club had developed the first ever bicycle made of bamboo during a similar bamboo cycle building workshop in Imphal in 2012.
India which is the second largest producer of bamboo in the world, continues to import huge amount of incense sticks (made out of bamboos) from Vietnam and China due to lack of knowledge on commercial cultivation of bamboo species (to substitute wood in mitigating pressure on natural forests), according to SABF. India reportedly consumes 3 billion incense sticks daily, people familiar with the development.