Summary
Zhemgang Dzongkhag lies in south central part of Bhutan covering a total land area of 242,174 ha. It is situated within an average elevation range from 200 m to 3,600 m. The Dzongkhag total area is comprised of about 85% forest that represents by diverse species of board level trees, bamboos and canes. It has 24 government approved Community forest which stands total area of 2,595.23 ha.
The people depend on agriculture and livestock farming. However, in the recent years, some of the gewogs already started development of bamboo handicraft items. The total of 21 bamboos encountered in the Dzongkhag represented 19 species from 11 genera. Out of which there are more than five species namely: Dendrocalamas (Shushing), Bambusa tula Roxb (bangay), Darabans (Lho), Dendrokalamus sikkimensis oliver (Demchar) and Bamboo vulgaris (tiliban), which can be used for production of bamboo shutter ply, shutter blog as well as for bamboo plank for flooring and panel.
Bamboo constitutes a significant portion of the total forest area in Zhemgang Dzongkhag. One of the major positive environmental impacts of bamboo is that it can be planted on degraded or fallow land and soils which other crops and trees would not survive on. This is mainly due to bamboo?s large rhizomes and extensive root systems. However, despite rich bamboo resources in Zhemgang, the sector suffers from inefficient harvesting systems and insufficient utilization of the natural resource. Moreover, bamboo related value-added, market- oriented products are limited, causing insignificant contribution to the economy despite much dependence of the poor especially rural people for their livelihood.

The experience from China shows that under right conditions, bamboo can become a lead sector for rural industrialization and poverty reduction. Besides, experiences from India and other countries reflect that integrated approach to develop MSME clusters across value chains can trigger industrial growth and improve competitiveness. With customized local strategy, the bamboo sector has potential to become a significant substitute for timber and thereby minimize environmental distress. The project outlines methodology for integrated bamboo-based development across clustered locations and help up-grade local institutional infrastructure in select communities.

The project will be implemented by HAB with guidance and support from Department of Social Forestry and Extension Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forest and Community Group leaders with two years.

Problem Statement, Primary Objective, Specific objectives, Rationale, Specific Results/Outcomes and Our Approaches.
Problem Statement
The key challenges are seen from 1 environment aspects, 2 social aspects, 3 cultural aspects and 4 economic aspects as following:

Environment Aspects: In recent years the communities witnessed aggressive development of farm roads and other constructions, which has made many lands quite prone to landslides during rainy seasons. Moreover, with the recent development opportunities and promotion of bamboo handicrafts has resulted in unsustainable harvesting of wild bamboos, which again poses threat to the existing bamboo species.

Trees takes more than 60 years to grow fully for harvesting whereas the bamboo can be harvested within 3 to 5 years and therefore it is globally accepted that bamboo as the best alternative of timber and environmentally friendly. For Bhutan, having enshrined in our constituency to maintain minimum of 60% forest cover forever also provides opportunities for bamboo related timber production as the best alternative to be pursued.

Benefits of Bamboo:
? Tensile strength at 15,000 pounds per square inch is similar to steel
? Strong and lightweight ? can be used as a replacement for steel and aluminum for scaffolding
? Can be used as replacement for steel rebar for reinforcing concrete beams and walls.
? Can be laminated just like wood
? Structurally stronger than steel, easy to work on and has good vibration, damping and heat insulation properties.
? It has been verified that, because of its hollowness, bamboo?s effectiveness as a beam is 1.9 better than a wooden beam.
? It also costs less on a volume-to-volume basis.
? Ripe bamboo culms can be harvested each year. In case of wood, one has to wait for some ten or twenty years.
? For a floor beam or a purlin the amount of bamboo required, is only 40 per cent of the timber needed for the same purposes.
? Bamboo is stronger than wood in shear.


Social Aspects: The working environment for the bamboo producers are very poor in the community. The producers are working individually and there are no linkages among the producers to share their exercise and know-how. Lacks the understanding on group approach of production and marketing. There is very poor management of bamboo produced in the District to promote integrated market. Currently, the whole production process is performed by individual producers and lacks value chain actors in the crafts. There is no networking platform for the craftsmen, entrepreneurs, exporters, traders and other concerned stakeholders in the District.

Cultural Aspects: With the recent massive development programs being introduced in the District, especially the youths give less priority for the traditional works such as bamboo crafts. If we do not facilitate the producers with product diversification and market linkages, there is high risk of losing the art of bamboo crafts, which is especially known for Zhemgang.

Economic Aspects: There is lack of standard and harmonized production of bamboo products in the district, which has resulted in low quality and failed to meet the bulk orders. Innovation in technology, product diversification and design can boost their production rates and make it more market oriented, however, the artisan community is lacking opportunities to explore learning experience both within and outside country who produces products in similar manner. The knowledge on marketing and branding among the artisan community is poor. The products are sold to the market, both for the local and export market, through a middleman whereby the benefits for the actual producers are very minimal.

Primary Objective
The overall objective of the project is to address the poverty, environment and gender issues by creating sustainable high value enterprise based economic opportunities with efficient use of bamboo resources in the Zhemgang Dzongkhag.

Specific Objectives
1. Build capacity and awareness of local institutions and communities on sustainable management of naturally grown bamboo species and cultivation techniques thus positively impacting the lives of 180 artisans/ workers;

2. Establishment of Community Bamboo Enterprise unit for the Communities in Zhemgang Dzongkhag;

3. Develop brand and linkages with Market and BDS providers for the Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit;

4. Provide financial counselling and develop business plan for the Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit/clusters.

Expected Outcomes/Results
The expected outcomes of the project can be seen at two different levels.
1) At micro enterprise level the project focuses more on making community members capable enough to run Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit through addressing their own economic problems; and

2) At the institution level, project targets at larger outreach of sustainable development by building the capacities, plugging the identified gaps among key public and private organizations and creating linkages with the Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit.

Micro Enterprises at Cluster Level:
1. Setup one Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit;
2. Creation and/or strengthen 5 sustainable bamboo producer groups/networks undertaking development initiatives at their end;
3. 80 directly trained artisans/workers including significant number of women will have at least 30% increased income but will positively impact similar outcomes for another 100 artisans/ workers within the same clusters;
4. New market linkages for 80 artisans/entrepreneurs created;
5. At least 3 new designs on processed bamboo products developed for the Community Bamboo Enterprise Unit, namely: Bamboo shutter blog, bamboo shutter ply and Bamboo mate.
6. At least 2 large retail chains/big brands/ companies potentially related to bamboo-based products will be commercially linked to the clusters for sustainable sourcing of products;
7. At least 15 artisans learnt Bamboo processing work as a full-time livelihood;
8. 5 Business Development Services (BDS) linked leading to increased usage of service by 100%;
9. 5 new technologies and new methods of production introduced;
10. 1 technology demonstration centre for bamboo seasoning, advanced processing, bamboo treatment, design equipment, product display, training facility and common production machines among for the 2 clusters created.

Strengthening Institutional Framework for larger outreach of sustainable development:
1. Clearly identifiable capacity gaps and infrastructural deficiencies bridged at least 5 institutions such as REDCL, BDBL, PLS, Parks and Forestry Sector thus helping them undertake scaled up initiatives for the community bamboo enterprise;

2. Audio-visual training material on different types of product-based skill creation available to the key relevant institutions;

3. New/alternate implementation methodologies, tools and documents among institutions reflected through minutes of the meetings, proceedings of workshops/ seminars and exposure visits etc.