The pocket or tiny forest started up as a small project in Japan some twenty years ago:
The small-footprint projects are based on the work of Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, who, beginning in the 1970s, pioneered a method of planting young indigenous species close together to quickly regenerate forests on degraded land. Miyawaki, who extensively studied and catalogued the vegetation of Japan, surveyed forests near potential Tiny Forest sites for a mixture of their main species. “The planting should center on the primary trees of the location, and following the laws of the natural forest,” he wrote in a 2006 essay upon accepting the Blue Planet award.
They are essentially about creating woodland in urban areas – and the point is that they are super tiny. super powerful:
Tiny Forest brings the benefits of woodland right into the heart of our cities and urban spaces: connecting people with nature, helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change, as well as providing nature-rich habitat to support urban wildlife.
THE GUARDIAN 15 August 2015 Patrick Barkham wrote: “Our ‘urban forests’ can
make us healthier, wealthier and happier”. …Trees on British streets lack any government
department or national body to look after them.”
Other places are embracing tree-planting - in a very new and clear context:
"The UK government has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. As part of our overall response to this, Surrey County Council has committed to facilitate the planting of 1.2 million trees – one for every Surrey resident – by 2030."
And the council has put together a programme to make that happen - by encouraging people to plant trees next to roads:
But, still, it's a challenge - which can be met, as the Start with Local group points out:
Street-trees can be expensive
Planting trees in streets can be expensive. Funnily enough, the tree is itself the cheapest component – a 3-4m high tree should cost your council £60-70, depending on species. The initial watering of a street-tree over 3 years is a massive £200-£250. Planting a tree in a grass verge may cost £100 but do so in a hard surface and you may be looking at £250, and more if you then get into engineered trees pit and tree guards. So, on average Defra estimates it costs about £600 to plant a street-tree. No wonder we’re not seeing a renaissance in street-trees, quite the opposite.
How to create a step-change?
At Start with Local, we’re working on a scheme to support the mass planting of street-trees – Trees for Streets...
Essay One : Pine Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College Oxford, explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises of five trees common in the UK. In this second series, she explores our ambiguous relationship with trees.
Pine is a big native Scot and economically the world's most important tree, not just the obvious uses in the furniture, building and paper industries, but also its medicinal properties in treating bronchitis and pneumonia for millennia and its resin used for turpentine, adhesives, wax, waterproofing and fragrances. It has been a British native tree for over 4000 years and yet its modernity is also assured as the tree that furnished the world. Forests of native pine were plentiful but there was an increase in temperature some 5000 years ago meaning that pines were driven out by deciduous trees which took over. Pine is also responsible for fuelling the industrial revolution, along with coal, and this along with its presence in cheap household articles gives a sad image to a huge, majestic, truly ancient British tree that has had its dignity stripped by the modern world, along with its bark.
A developer in West Hill has killed off two ancient oaks in West Hill, prior to submitting a planning application.
Hugo Headon of H & H Prestige Homes recently bought Crantock on West Hill Road, near the war memorial.
But there are two ancient oaks inconveniently growing on either side of the access, which may have to be widened if another house/houses were built in the back garden.
Unfortunately, the trees were not subject to a preservation order.
I received a phone call from a resident at around 7.30am on Thursday (4 Oct) morning, worried about chainsaw noises coming from Crantock.
I rang one of EDDC’s tree officers and following a visit that morning, where he met and spoke with Mr Headon on site, it became apparent that the two very old oak trees had been fatally and deliberately damaged.
A large number of trees in the back garden have also been fatally damaged or felled, including several mature native species.
It is really incomprehensible how someone can do this.
And here’s the view of West Hill Road without those lovely old oaks at Crantock.
The developer, Hugo Headon from H & H Prestige Homes, told the Ottery Herald that a tree surgeon’s report stated that one oak was “a serious danger” and the other needed “expensive tests.” He said the tree was not worth the cost.
This was news to EDDC’s tree officer who said that although there was some dead wood the trees would have lived for at least another 100 years.
Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan environmentalist and political activist. In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental NGO focused on environmental conservation and women's rights. In 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.
The Green Belt Movement (http://greenbeltmovement.org) organizes rural women in Kenya to plant trees, an effort that combats deforestation while generating income for the community and promoting empowerment for women. Since Maathai founded the Movement, over 40 million trees have been planted and over 30,000 women have been trained in forestry, food processing, beekeeping, and other sustainable, income-generating activities.
