Ever heard of a Tint Forest? Its a Japanese planting method and its already here in the Black Country.
We visit the Tiny Forest in Merridale, Wolverhampton and learn about a different approach to planting a woodland area that was created in Japan, and allows the forest to develop much quicker than traditional planting. Eathwatch held an open day event and we went to find out more.
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00:00So Claire, we're here at a tiny forest, Oak Street Wolverhampton.
00:04What is a tiny forest?
00:06Yes, so a tiny forest is a small Miyawaki forest planted in urban areas to improve the environment for people and for nature.
00:14And the Miyawaki method is a method invented by Professor Miyawaki in Japan in the 1970s
00:20to grow mature forests faster than can be done by other afforestation methods.
00:26And it does this by replicating natural forest processes, planting all four canopy layers at the same time in close together.
00:35And also by prepping the soil to make nice, healthy soil for those trees to grow in.
00:40And this was planted in 2021, so it's come along in just a few years.
00:46Looking fantastic.
00:47And you were saying that it looks very dense, but once you get past that first leaf layer,
00:52there's almost little paths starting to appear inside and that's kind of the idea, isn't it?
00:57Yeah, exactly. So as the forest grows, the canopy closes over.
01:01And what happens then is you'll still see quite a lot of foliage at low levels around the outside.
01:06But inside, when you get through that foliage, it starts opening up and you'll see lots and lots of the tree's branches
01:13and a really nice, healthy leaf litter layer on the floor that's being broken down by all of those ground dwellers and microorganisms
01:19and creating really nice, healthy soil for the trees to continue growing in.
01:23And tiny forests, they're kind of from the very north, right down to the south.
01:27But you were saying West Midlands has got kind of the highest density at the minute.
01:31So we're doing quite well in the West Midlands.
01:33Yeah, you've got, I think, about 80 forests across the West Midlands, just in this area.
01:38And there's 250 tiny forests currently across the United Kingdom.
01:42So the West Midlands definitely at the moment has the highest density.
01:45So get out and find yours.
01:47You're doing an Earthwatch, that's who you represent.
01:50You're doing an event here today and people can come along and do some different experiments
01:54looking at the types of soil and water absorption and those kind of things.
01:58I'm going to ask you now, why is it important that we have these little forests?
02:02Why is it important we have these?
02:05So, high quality green space is known to be so beneficial for people.
02:11So in our well-being, in getting out there and enjoying the space,
02:16but it's also great in the benefits that it provides to an area.
02:20So what we do at Tiny Forest is we engage people in coming and measuring those benefits of the forest.
02:26So looking at the tree growth rates, looking at the benefits for flood mitigation of the soil
02:32and how the soil properties benefit that.
02:35And we also look at the thermal comfort benefits of the forest
02:38and the benefits of the forest for biodiversity.
02:41So we've got tiles in the forest that you can go and lift up
02:44and look at all of the ground dwellers that are living in there
02:47and they're what help break down that leaf litter matter and create that healthy soil.
02:51And you can enter all of this information through our website.
02:55So each forest has its own webpage and you can go there and enter the data on that webpage.