Mr Sharma has, through Afforestt, a firm he founded in 2011, become a leading proponent of the Miyawaki method. Hyderabad started growing the largest individual forest of the lot, across four hectares, in 2020. The authorities in Tirunelveli, in the country’s south, use the Miyawaki method to create green cover in the city’s schools. A group in Chennai has set up 25 such forests. In Bangalore, more than 50,000 (see before-and-after picture below, for a forest planted near the city’s airport).
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In Mumbai, more than 200,000 trees are found in Miyawaki forests throughout the city and its suburbs. Others are now following in his footsteps. A couple of decades later the whole thing reaches maturity.ĭr Miyawaki has supervised the planting of more than 1,500 of these miniature forests, first in Japan, then in other parts of the world. For three years, the gardeners water and nurture their handiwork. Trees planted in this way can shoot up as much as 14% more rapidly than normal. The seedlings therefore have to fight for sunlight, so only the fastest-growing survive. And, beneath the surface, plants’ roots interact with each other, and with soil fungi, in ways that enable a nutrient exchange which is only now beginning to be understood.Īfter selecting their species, the gardeners gather seeds and plant them at random, rather than in rows. Not only does that pack more greenery into a given space, it also encourages the plants to grow faster-for there are lots of positive ecological relations in a natural forest. But trees, shrubs and ground-covering herbs all coexist in natural forests, and the Miyawaki versions therefore have this variety from the start. Most plantations, having been created for commercial purposes, are monocultures. Using a wide mix of species, not all of them trees, is important. These are chosen by surveying the nearby area on foot instead of relying on published guidebooks, which have a habit of being out of date or even simply wrong. They then select 100 or so local plant species to deploy. Chicken manure and press mud (the solid residue left behind when sugar-cane juice is filtered) are effective and essentially free. If necessary, they improve it by mixing in suitable fertilisers. When starting a Miyawaki forest, those involved, who often refer to themselves as gardeners, first analyse the soil in which it will grow. The Miyawaki method skips some of the early phases and jumps directly to planting the kinds of species found in a mature wood. Incipient and mature woodlands therefore contain different species. Shrubs sprout later, followed by small trees and, finally, larger ones. And the Miyawaki method, as it has become known, is finding increasing favour around the world.ĭr Miyawaki’s insight was to deconstruct and rebuild the process of ecological succession, by which bare land develops naturally into mature forest. Dr Miyawaki (pictured above) retired from his university post in 1993, but is still going strong. Over the course of a career that began in the 1950s their leader, Miyawaki Akira, a plant ecologist at Yokohama National University, in Japan, has developed a way to do this starting with even the most unpromising derelict areas. It is to plant miniature simulacra of natural forests, ecologically engineered for rapid growth. One group of botanists believe they have at least a partial solution to this lack of urban vegetation. By 2050 that share is expected to reach 68%. At the moment, 55% of people live in cities. Unfortunately, not all cities-and especially not those now springing up in the world’s poor and middle-income countries-are blessed with parks, private gardens or even ornamental street trees in sufficient numbers. In 2019 researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that American cities need 40% tree coverage to cut urban heat back meaningfully.
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To cool an area effectively, though, trees must be planted in quantity. Their leaves have, after all, evolved to intercept sunlight, the motor of photosynthesis. Besides transpiration, they provide shade. Their leaves may destroy at least some chemical pollutants (the question is debated) and they certainly trap airborne particulate matter, which is then washed to the ground by rain. Your browser does not support the element.Įnjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.Ī possible answer to the twin problems of pollution and heat is trees.