Chennai’s Urban Forests

Source: Live Mint

Relevance: To understand the Miyawaki method of creating urban forests in less time.

Synopsis: Urban areas have lost a lot of green covers. Miyawaki’s method promises to quickly create urban forests.

About Miyawaki method:

It is a method pioneered by Japanese Botanist Akira Miyawaki. Miyawaki is a technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki that helps build dense, native forests. The approach is supposed to ensure that plant growth is 10 times faster and the resulting plantation is 30 times denser than usual.

It mandates planting indigenous shrubs and trees close together, ensuring dense multi-layered forests that grow faster than those produced via traditional afforestation methods.

It can produce rich, dense forests in about 20-30 years.

Implementation in Chennai

Chennai has lost a lot of forest cover. Many trees were lost due to encroachments. Cyclones have claimed a vast number of trees.

So the Miyawaki method is gaining popularity, particularly in urban landscapes where space availability is an issue. About 1300 saplings were planted by Chennai municipal authority (GCC – Greater Chennai Corporation). May NGO’s like TREES have joined hands with GCC to support these drives

Issues:

However, some disagree with the utility of the Miyawaki method. They claim:

• Choking small spaces with numerous trees is not an ideal approach.
• They suggest that a few well-grown trees can also sequester carbon effectively.
• They also apprehend that this method may be used to justify the cutting of older trees.

Way forward

Despite its shortcomings, the Miyawaki method does have the potential of rapidly greening the barren urban landscapes.