News and Insights
‘Microforest’ takes root in Providence, reflecting worldwide trend
Edward Fitzpatrick, Boston Globe
Bio4Climate Director of Regenerative Projects Alexandra Ionescu recently spoke with the Boston Globe about the growing interest in the miniforest movement in the Northeast and beyond, featuring our friends at the Pearl Street Garden Collective and Groundwork Rhode Island.
“In 2021, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and SUGi teamed up to plant the first Miyawaki forest in the Northeast in Cambridge’s Danehy Park, a former landfill. Massachusetts now has at least 20 microforests, according to Alexandra Ionescu, a Providence resident who is associate director of regenerative projects at Biodiversity fora Livable Climate, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that promotes ecosystem restoration to address climate change. And she expects to see many more in the region in the years ahead.
‘A lot of people right now are feeling the effects of climate change and they want to take meaningful action. It responds to the energy of those who want to engage in earth repair,’ Ionescu said.
These small but rapidly growing forests help clean the air and create a unifying focal point for the community, proponents said.”
Remembering Jane Goodall
Dr. Jane Goodall taught generations that we, too, share in the tapestry of life, with our own roles to play. We can choose to understand, care, and help, or we can extract, consume, and degrade. We can choose to unravel the tapestry of life, or to stitch it back together.
Events and Community
Belmont, Mass. | A forest grows in Belmont!
It’s planting day in Belmont! Today, more than 200 volunteers will gather at Belmont High School to plant 1,140 native trees and shrubs, transforming the school grounds into a 3,000-square-foot mini-forest.
Beyond ecology, the effort to bring this forest to life has become a bridge for community healing, youth engagement, and redefining schooling through ecology. One young Girl Scout, living in an apartment with no yard, has nursed a sapling all year to plant it in the forest today.
The miniforest’s journey taps into a richer vein of what these forests can mean as instruments of care and learning and their power to bring communities together at a time when many are being pushed and pulled apart.
We look forward to sharing more stories and photos as things get underway!
Courses
“Once you put a stop to ecological depletion, the forests come back.”
John D. Liu is a producer and photojournalist. Since 2009, John has worked with Willem Ferwerda the Founder and CEO of the Commonland Foundation, which is catalyzing privately invested large-scale restoration in many parts of the world. John is also the founder of the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement that began in 2016 and has grown to currently 80 camps in 6 continents.
Learn from John
October 16, 7PM ET
“I think there is an element of the sacred in the beaver, if only in its deep weirdness.”
Leila Philip is an award-winning author whose nonfiction books chronicle personal journeys across cultures and landscapes, including Beaverland. Leila writes to know about the world and her place in it and to better connect with worlds, ideas and realities that are not her own. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.
Learn from Leila
October 30, 12pm ET
Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?
Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.
