25-10 - Flipbook - Page 68
Hephzibah
Ministries
How Japanese 'tiny forests' are sweeping Scotland
Grown using the Miyawaki method, fast-growing miniature forests in the
middle of cities can bring surprisingly big benefits for people and the
environment.
"It's like going on a bear hunt!"
Not quite, perhaps, but these kids are definitely excited. They are on a visit
to a miniscule patch of forest in the grounds of Queen Margaret University on
the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, and are about to head out armed with a
bucket of water, a jug and a stopwatch.
They are measuring how fast patches of soil inside and outside the forest
absorb water, so we leave the small circular howff (a traditionally-built shelter
with a wildflower roof) in the middle of the vegetation. The child in charge of
the stopwatch does a couple of test runs and the pouring begins.
"I want you to decide when it's all gone," says Elly Kinross, the woodland and
greenspace officer at Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust who is running
this session for the kids. "The grass can be wet, but basically the water needs to
be gone… Yeh I think that's gone. OK, good, give it a stop."
This class of eight- and nine-year-olds is spending the day in a tiny forest
(known, in Scotland, as a wee forest): small tennis court-sized patches of land,
usually in urban areas, rigorously prepared and planted with the makings of a
fast-growing, dense native forest.
These petite patches of greenery have been springing up across the world
for decades now. Japan has planted thousands; India, where the tiny forest
Jocelyn Timperley
