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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250910-the-tiny-forests-that-thrive-in-cities?ICID=ref_fark>
'"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 concept
was developed, hundreds. The Netherlands is a hotspot for them too, and they
are also now beginning to spring up across the US. But it is the UK that has
most recently seen an enormous push towards these miniature urban forests, with
hundreds planted since 2020.
As I visit the site alongside these schoolchildren on a beautifully sunny
spring day, I'm also on a kind of hunt. I'm trying to work out how big the
benefits of foresting such tiny areas really are. As it turns out, I've
stumbled onto a thorny, decades-long debate.'
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
