Can bamboo help solve problems of climate change and create jobs for local rural communities?

Bamboo sequesters 1.33 times more carbon than trees. The global market value of bamboo products is around €50 billion. Cameroon has about 1.2 million hectares of bamboo, a mix of indigenous and species introduced in colonial times.

Bamboo contributes to the livelihoods of cabout 31,000 people, providing incomes for harvesters, crafts people and sellers albeit these incomes are generally below poverty benchmarks. The potential for this grass to improve livelihoods and to mitigate climate change, however, is under-realised due to a lack of sufficient data and inappropriate policy. This study investigates the socio-economic contribution of bamboo for stakeholders in bamboo value chains and evaluates the potential of bamboo to mitigate climate change. This data is then used to provide input to a sectoral policy - to be co-developed with bamboo value chain stakeholders - which considers trade-offs between the goals of conservation and climate change mitigation and development.

An innovative Social-Environmental Systems and value chain approach is used to analyse socio-economic benefits. The Poverty Environment Network Sustainable Livelihoods approach is adapted to collect and analyse livelihoods data. To evaluate climate change mitigation potential, allometric equations using the clump-base method are used. To ensure policy relevance and societal impact, this scientific data provides evidential input as part of a participatory policy development process to draft a sectoral policy for the development of bamboo in Cameroon. The conceptual framing of trade-offs between carbon sequestration/mitigation and livelihoods and using this evidence as part of a co-developed policy process are novel aspects of the research.