Tag: miyawaki

What are these tiny forests’ big benefits anyway?

What a thrilling week it has been! Since last Thursday’s New York Times article Tiny Forests with Big Benefits, my teammates and I at Bio4Climate have been buzzing with excitement at the recognition our forests and this type of restoration is getting. We are so thrilled by the enthusiasm of people’s responses, from interest in implementing native plantings and eco-restoration projects in their own communities to an influx of questions and suggestions for our work in the Boston area.

Since so many people are new to us and to this work, I wanted to cover some of the basics of what we’re talking about with this ‘mini-forest revolution’, and why these plantings are much bigger than what meets the eye.

Why are Miyawaki forests important?

Well, like forests (and healthy ecosystems everywhere), Miyawaki forests provide biodiversity, habitat, clean air, clean water, cooling, shade, and beauty, and can bring these essential functions into built environments where nature has been degraded and excluded. Though we often talk about the importance of nature to birds, insects, and animals, trying to speak for creatures who can’t advocate for themselves, humans need nature too.

Flourishing green spaces are great for mental and physical health, create a place for connection and enjoyment, and buffer extremes in weather that can be so harmful to communities. And crucially, because Miyawaki forests can be created in small pockets of space (1000 sq ft or more), these plantings give us a way to fight environmental injustice and target heat islands in our urban areas in a practical and strategic way. 

What belongs in a Miyawaki forest?

Native saplings appropriate to the potential natural vegetation of an area are what make up a Miyawaki forest. This includes trees and shrubs belonging to the different vertical layers of a forest canopy (after all, in nature no space is wasted). It also consists of a living forest floor teeming with fungal and microbial activity, jump started by soil remediation, that fosters an intricate underground network of life.

Early successional vegetation (or colloquially ‘weeds’) don’t belong. Neither do non-native trees. As a blanket statement, these types of vegetation aren’t awful or malicious, and may even have certain strengths. However, we work in the first few years of forest establishment to remove this competing ground cover, as it interferes with the slower growth of the trees we’ve planted.

Ironically, one NYTimes image spotlighting the Danehy Park Forest features Queen Anne’s Lace, a non-native plant that sprung up at the forest’s edge. These, and other encroaching companions, are removed by volunteers periodically, and the forest is monitored to assess its health.
(Photo by Cassandra Klos)

At nearly two years old, the Danehy Park Miyawaki Forest has become so dense that most encroaching vegetation is shaded out in the interior.

How do we make sure a forest planting is successful?

Well, we start by following the Miyawaki Method, which is based on understanding the site of planting and the healthy forest communities that once flourished there. After a site survey, species survey, soil preparation, forest design, community planting, and two to three years of site maintenance, the forest becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem. But even after that, change within the forest is constant, as slower-growing canopy trees overtake companions that have shot up quickly, as individuals topple and create gaps for other saplings to fill, as new seeds dropped in by birds germinate, and the soil itself changes composition in response to these dynamics. 

Like everything in nature, restoration, and the ecological succession that occurs in a Miyawaki forest, takes time. It’s a humbling process to participate in, to work to jumpstart an ecosystem, do what we can to steward it, and respect that the behaviors and interdependent activities in the system drive most of what happens afterward. We are learning as these years unfold what works best in adapting this method to our region. As we keep monitoring, maintaining, planting, and observing these pocket forests, we get to better understand how these processes unfold, and how we can play an appropriate role in this regeneration. 

It is an honor and a joy to take part. 

Thank you to everyone whose support makes this work possible! Your volunteering, donations, advocacy, and encouragement keep us going. Learn more about our Miyawaki Forest program and how you can participate.

Northern Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera)
American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)

Bonus: Should I plant a Miyawaki Forest?

It depends! Where do you live, and what is the natural ecosystem there? 

The Miyawaki Method is an approach to reforesting previously forested areas, based on the natural vegetation there. While forests are wonderful, so are healthy grasslands, wetlands, and savannas. There are many different types of ecological restoration, and the process of regeneration begins with understanding your context – what ecological communities (including human communities) have existed there, what healthy functioning looks like, and what causes of degradation have led to the current state of things.

The exciting thing about community-led ecosystem restoration is that there are so many creative possibilities, and it all begins by connecting to what is around you and finding a place to contribute to the healing. Get started by learning more about ecosystem restoration in general, and finding out what is happening where you are.

Photos are by Cassandra Klos for The New York Times where stated, and otherwise by Maya Dutta, Danehy Park, 2023.

Our First Miyawaki Forest Turns Two

Our community grows alongside our first Miyawaki forest!

In September of 2021, we planted our first Miyawaki forest – the first in the Northeastern U.S. – in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As the forest turns two, and demonstrates signs of resilient, abundant growth, the Bio4Climate team gathered with local forest enthusiasts to reflect and celebrate the ecosystem restoration happening in real time.

Bio4Climate’s staff scientist Jim Laurie welcomed newcomers with his lovely openness and a raft of books laid out on the table, ready and eager to discuss any issue that might be raised while sharing so many of his intelligent, deep insights. Assistant Director of Regenerative Projects, Maya Dutta, shared her reflections and history of our ecosystem restoration efforts and understanding of the larger aspects of the Miyawaki method and its special and unique characteristics.

Maya Dutta, Assistant Director of Regenerative Projects

Reading about the growth of these forests is one thing, but it’s truly a remarkable experience to visit and witness the young ecosystem for yourself. This was the case for students of Jim Laurie’s Biodiversity Deep Dive classes.  Having read Hannah Lewis’s Mini Forest Revolution, and had discussion groups with both Hannah and Maya on the Miyawaki method, students were eager to organize a field trip and see for themselves what a community of trees, fungi, microbes, and people can accomplish in just a couple of short years.

In the Danehy Park Miyawaki Forest, we found that many eventual climax trees are already over 10 feet tall with skinny trunks but large leaves to catch a lot of sun.  We saw sycamore, cottonwood, hickory, quaking aspen, oak and more reaching for the sky.  Lower down were many fruiting rosehips and elderberries. We also witnessed visiting creatures including crickets and birds.

From Paul Barringer, a Bio4Climate community member:

It was such an inspiring experience being at the Miyawaki Forest meeting with many of the Bio4Climate staff. It reaffirmed for me that there are nature-based solutions already happening through the work of positive-minded people right here in Cambridge & Boston. I wrote a poem about this as gratitude for being part of the gathering and celebration.

We are so grateful for Paul’s poetic expression of his gratitude. Thank you for sharing and spreading the inspiration!

We welcome others to join in sharing their experience, in the comments below or by email, and to share photos of the gathering or of the mini-forest.

American elderberry fruit bunch (Sambucus canadensis)

Oak seedling

Jim shared his teaching tools with the group and gave away three of his favorite books

It was wonderful to gather with this group of eco-restoration enthusiasts who are working to seed their own communities with nature’s solutions. People came from across New England, many eager to get their own Miyawaki forest projects underway. This is how we develop our own mycelial network of regenerative energy.

Thank you to everyone who has helped us restore our shared spaces and bring back biodiversity. By volunteering on our planting days, spreading the word, or donating to our organization, you are contributing to the Mini Forest Revolution!

Learn more about our Miyawaki Forest program and how you can participate.

Our next gathering will take place on Sunday, September 3rd from 10 am to 2 pm.  Sign up for our mailing list to get notified!

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Using the Miyawaki Method to Rapidly Rewild our Communities

Bulu mini-forest in Cameroon after 19 months; Photo: Agborkang Godfred

Hannah Lewis, Compendium Editor for Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate and freelance writer

The Miyawaki Method

The Miyawaki Method is a way to grow natural, mature forests in a couple of decades rather than a couple of centuries. You do this by observing what happens in nature. When bare ground is left undisturbed for many decades or centuries, plants grow into the space in successive waves of increasingly larger, longer-living, and more shade-tolerant vegetation, each group replacing the previous group. This process ultimately results in a stable, mature forest in places where the climate is suitable for such. The Miyawaki Method anticipates what would grow in that ultimate forest community and plants those species directly.

In addition to guiding the choice of species – which will include not only large canopy trees but also smaller trees and shrubs, the Miyawaki Method calls for intensively preparing the soil, planting densely, heavily mulching, and actively maintaining the site for the first three years as the forest becomes established. By the end of three years, the young trees will have formed a thick enough canopy to shade out weeds and create a microclimate that protects the soil. So, by this time a forest planted this way is self-sufficient, needing no further maintenance. 

Community engagement is a core element of the Miyawaki Method. Dr. Miyawaki himself organized “planting festivals” for forest making that very deliberately put communities at the center of the process. These festivals got started with a call-and-response “naming ceremony” in which everyone gathered would call out and repeat the names of the main tree species they were about to plant – to learn the names and be able to recognize the species. In his prolific writing and speaking, Miyawaki made it clear that people are a part of nature, that our wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of ecosystems, and that we have a responsibility toward one another to take care of nature. So, naturally, people should be involved in forest-making.

The method lends itself to intergenerational public participation because the plants are small, lightweight, and easy to plant even for a small child. Also, because there are so many plants, it takes a lot of people to get the job done!

Bio4Climate’s Cambridge Miyawaki forest after planting
Photo: Ethan Bryson of Natural Urban Forests

Mini-Forest Revolution

My motivation to write Mini-Forest Revolution and to plant a mini-forest were inseparable from each other, and similar to what motivated the others featured in the book to embrace the Miyawaki Method. For me, it has been a positive way to transform anxiety over our languishing planet, over all the species being lost, and over all the individuals suffering – into action that can slow those processes down, at least locally. Planting a mini-forest is a way to express love for this world, and writing the book seemed like a good way to explain how and why. And both projects were a lot of fun!

My goal for the book is to encourage readers to reconsider our relationship to wildlife by more clearly seeing our interdependence with other species. While we can probably survive without cell phones, cars, and refrigerators, we cannot live too long without the web of relationships that results in oxygen production, clean water, healthful food, and milder weather patterns. Planting mini-forests is a way to nurture a section of the greater web of life, which in turn supports our lives in more ways that we can imagine through interdependencies to which we are generally blind. There are millions of examples of species interactions happening outside the human realm that sustain us – and forests are the site of many such interactions. Let’s conserve and restore forests together.

Cover of Hannah’s book, Mini-Forest Revolution, featuring Bio4Climate’s Cambridge Miyawaki forest

Tania Roa, Digital Communications and Internships Manager for Bio4Climate

In “Mini-Forest Revolution,” Hannah Lewis outlines a replicable, evidently successful urban afforestation method. She not only makes it easy for us readers to understand the Miyawaki Method, she gives us the knowledge and tools to plant our own mini-forests. This book does three things: bring awareness to the connections between climate change and biodiversity loss, emphasize nature’s solutions to these intertwined crises, and give us a call to action – all in 205 pages.

The idea of planting a small forest may seem counterintuitive. You might be thinking, “Don’t we need larger forests? How can a mini forest tackle global warming and biodiversity loss on a large scale?” These are valid questions. 

When we think of the climate crisis, we think of a global phenomenon, and that leads us to think we need to invest in cross-continental solutions. But what if we thought global and acted local? We would still be aiming to address the issues that affect people across the globe, but we would be doing it in a way that allows us to start anywhere, anytime. You most likely don’t have the resources and connections to begin a project that reaches dozens of countries at once, but you do have the means to create a positive impact right in your own neighborhood. That may not make a difference to someone living oceans away, but it will change the lives of the people, wildlife, and soil microorganisms around you.

Hannah also points out that in just a few years, the number of Miyawaki forests around the world has expanded more than Dr. Miyawaki himself could have predicted. One man, with a dedication to leaving the world better than he found it, came up with an idea that transformed how we think about ecosystems in urban settings. If there was ever proof that the actions of one person can influence the actions of another, even for those who never had the honor of meeting him, it’s in the life of Akira Miyawaki.

For me, the most important aspect of the Miyawaki Method is the community-led mindset. Planting Miyawaki forests is not meant to be done by one person. This model is designed to incorporate as many people in the vicinity as possible. It’s meant to be shared, and with that the benefits of the forest are replicated. By involving local communities, you inevitably spread the message of nature’s climate solutions, the benefits of biodiversity, and the fact that humans are inextricably linked to other species. Embedded in this method is education, inspiration, and ultimately positive action.

So if you ever feel like the climate action you’re taking is not enough, just remember what a wise person once said: a small act is not so small if millions of people are doing it. Every revolution needs to start somewhere. Every revolution needs masses of people to get informed, join, and take a leap of faith. The mini-forest revolution is underway – will you be a part of it?

To learn more about the Miyawaki Method and Hannah’s book “Mini-Forest Revolution,” click below to watch the interview I hosted, and get ready to be inspired!

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