How Tiny Forests should improve the urban climate

Everything that is TINY is somehow hip. This includes the Tiny Forest, whose popularity is growing as fast as it is. Allegedly, this mini forest grows on mini areas at maximum speed and produces a maximum number of creatures at the same time. Let's take a closer look!

A forest that grows ten times faster, is 30 times denser and 100 times richer in species than conventional forests. At least that's how it should work, according to Shubhendu Sharma's Ted Talk .

He shows a picture of an area of just six car parking spaces with 300 trees on them, which are so dense that it seems impossible to penetrate them.

Why should that work?

The Miyawaki method

Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki's method is based on a few parameters that may sound surprising at first.

Native shrubs and trees are planted in very small spaces (on average three seedlings per square meter). By their very nature, they compete for sunlight and strive to grow upwards at a rapid pace. Of course, this works particularly well in nutrient-rich, moist soil. It gives the seedlings an extra jump-start.

Supporters of the Miyawaki method claim that it can accelerate the growth of trees tenfold.

This would mean that a supposedly hundred-year-old forest would be created in just ten years. Akira Miyawaki invented the method back in the 1970s. Now, it could bring us a lot closer to our big goals.

Tiny Forests are gaining ground worldwide, from South East Asia to Latin America to Canada and finally Europe, there are already reference projects.

They are intended to provide a home for small mammals, birds and insects, bind CO₂ and improve air quality - all in a minimal space.

This could be the solution for some urban heat islands.

Of course, there are also critics, such as the Indian environmentalist Yellappa Reddy: "It's not a good idea to force plants to photosynthesize so quickly," he says, even though - or perhaps because - his native India has now become a Miyawaki stronghold.

We hope that it works. It could be a good solution for some areas.