The concept of pocket forests is just beginning a dizzying career in discussions of urban greening. Kasper Jakubowski, landscape architect and president of the Children in Nature Foundation, discusses what a pocket forest is, how they differ from traditional forests, and how they can help cities adapt to climate change.
Wiktor Bochenek: What is a pocket forest?
Kasper Jakubowski: Pocket forests, also known as Miyawaki forests, are planted using a method developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. Miyawaki observed the naturally growing and protected vegetation around Japanese temples, where it was most wild and diverse. Inspired by this nature, he developed his own planting method, which is now more than fifty years old.
The essence of such a forest is the diversity of species. In Poznan, where we planted the first urban pocket forest with UWI Inwestycja S.A., we used twenty-five species of trees and shrubs to plant it. A few years after planting such a micro-forest, interference with it ceases, this ecosystem is supposed to regulate itself and "go wild".
In Asia, this method of planting a forest is very popular and used in thousands of implementations. For the past ten years or so, it has begun to be used in European cities. The biggest advantage of pocket forests is that they can be created on the most degraded land. They are not planted under a ruler, but spontaneously, making sure that the seedlings are planted very close together - every 30-60 cm.
Wiktor Bochenek: How is the Miyawaki forest different from traditional green areas?
Kasper Jakubowski: Miyawaki forests are planted at a high density, from three to as manyas seven saplings per square meter. It is also important to avoid planting the same species next to each other. Modern urban greenery is planned under a ruler and usually based on alien, and not infrequently invasive, species. It has little room for naturalness and biodiversity. Miyawaki forests use only native species such as calla, buckthorn, buckthorn, sagebrush, wild apple, bird cherry and aspen. In this type of habitat, we are actually programming the forest to regulate itself and adapt to climate change and the urban heat island. After 3-5 years, we give the field to natural processes and reduce maintenance costs to zero!
the process of planting greenery at the Poznan implementation
© Green City Poznań / UWI INWESTYCJE SA
Wiktor Bochenek: What size can pocket forests be?
Kasper Jakubowski: These forests can be relatively small - the size of a tennis court, or about 250m2. In the Netherlands or Belgium, pocket forests are even smaller, even 120-150m2. There are a lot of spaces in cities that are simply lawns or degraded areas. These are ideal spaces for creating such urban groves. In Poznan, on my and the developer's initiative, we managed to plant several small groves in a narrow, degraded area between housing estates. The method of planting pocket forests allows better adaptation to the ever-changing environment - diversified greenery cools, benefits the microclimate, but also stores rainwater.
Pocket forests are also important for helping beneficial insects, but also increasingly rare songbirds, including nightingales or sparrows. They can therefore be effective and relatively inexpensive tools for creating new places for urban wildlife.
Such groves also have the advantage of growing faster than conventional forests. This is due to species selection, high density and symbiosis between fungi and plants. You don't have to wait a decade for something to grow there. Such Miywawaki forests can also contrast strikingly with lawns and more landscaped spaces.
Wiktor Bochenek: How can it interact with urban architecture?
Kasper Jakubowski: Research on microlasses has indicated that these lower the temperature bytwo to four degrees around buildings. They also perform an excellent retention function. They allow cooling and create a pleasant space. The grove as a category of greenery connotes well. It can successfully fulfill its role in modern settlements "submerged" in greenery, and this is increasingly emphasized by developers and their clients and customers.
But it's not that pocket forests should be planted everywhere. This is one of the elements of greenery in the entire layout of an estate or park In Poznań, the developer UWI, with whom we planted such a micro-forest, is also creating less frequently mowed lawns and flower meadows in this place, and will establish an urban orchard. A small area of such forests with a variety of shapes allows for interesting development of biologically active areas of settlements.
When we started planting this forest I was afraid that people would protest against its planting, because in a few years it would shade the windows. The reception was quite different. I was asked why the trees were not also planted closer to their windows. The social aspect is very important in the design of micro-forests. In Poland, we underestimate the social impact of pro-nature activities - in Poznan, almost a thousand Poznan men and women came by a forest planted by a developer. In London such actions involving investment entrepreneurs, NGOs and residents are the norm, in our country they are still rare. And the social and environmental benefits of such alternatives in greenery development can be enormous!
information board
© Green City Poznań / UWI INWESTYCJE SA
Wiktor Bochenek: There are opinions that pocket forests are a new kind of greenwashing and reinventing the wheel. How would you address this allegation?
Kasper Jakubowski: This may be due to the low public confidence in developers, who are suspected of such greenwashing. Sure, if we described pocket forests as the only answer against Polish concretization it would be pure greenwashing and cynical PR. It seems to me that it is necessary today to create huge green areas - XXL-type parks, to protect and restore wetlands, because they are eco-sponges, to establish flower meadows and urban orchards, to design green roofs, to climb facades, and to establish pocket forests in new settlements and public greenery.
Pocket forests are not a panacea for all the ecological and social problems of Polish cities. It is primarily a matter of good planning. The Miyawaki forest is something that can be planted by both the local government, NGOs and the developer, and is a better solution than hundreds of even replacement plantings I have no resistance as a landscape architect to work with a developer if I know that a good project will come out of it, to the benefit of people and nature. You can see by the number of implementations in Europe that planting pocket forests with residents makes sense. I managed to convince a developer in Poznan, who invited me to implement the idea.
It seems to me that we can call greenwashing inviting employees of companies and entrepreneurs to jointly plant economic forests we together with the State Forests. After all, these forests are planted with the primary purpose of harvesting timber and chopping it down, so it's not too clear what the ecological dimension of such activities is all about. On the other hand, if a developer himself decided to create such a forest on one of his plots of land, invested in it, will additionally create a park there for residents, this is not greenwashing.
If architects and developers want to create pocket forests, it is important to remember that this must not involve cutting down the growing trees on the site. Protecting self-sown or pre-existing condition is important. Then one should respect what we found and it grows on its own.
Wiktor Bochenek: Thank you for the interview!
