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In the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at a former landfill transformed into a public park of recreation fields and playgrounds, an unexpected sight arises atop a sloping lawn: a wild forest so lush and densely packed that even sunlight struggles to penetrate its depths.
On a sunny May morning, this tiny woodland is alive with birdsong. Eight bird species have made it their home since the forest was planted by one hundred volunteers in the fall of 2021, returning it to the way it functioned hundreds of years ago before humans damaged the ecosystem.
A canopy of eastern cottonwood trees and quaking aspens shimmy in the wind twenty-four feet above; three years ago, these were three-foot saplings. Birches and elms, oaks and sycamores, and three types of maples reach skyward for their share of sun, and fast-growing sumacs are cloaked in fuzzy bark, their leaves just beginning to erupt.
Around the perimeter of the forest dogwoods, currants, and rose bushes stand shoulder to shoulder like smiling sentinels, flanked by honeysuckle and witch hazel. Mushrooms sprout from the rich soil, a robin alights on an elderberry, two squirrels squeeze through the underbrush, and dragonflies and bumblebees deftly maneuver tight spaces.
This is the Miyawaki Forest in Danehy Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts—the first Miyawaki Forest in the northeastern United States. A community-led solution for fighting climate change and biodiversity loss, Miyawaki Forests are dense, biodiverse pocket forests that seek to recreate the natural forest system of an area.
Small but mighty, they sequester carbon in the soil, reduce air pollution and soil contamination, improve water absorption to fight flooding and erosion, and cool the effects of urban heat islands by providing not only shade but also evapotranspiration, “a kind of sweating for the earth,” explains Beck Mordini, a Unitarian Universalist and executive director of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (Bio4Climate), and a leader in the Miyawaki movement in the United States.
Developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki in the 1970s, these forests re-establish biodiversity—which is as critical for mitigating climate change as reducing carbon emissions—by attracting and sustaining a variety of wildlife, including pollinators, other insects, birds, and small mammals.
Because they are planted and stewarded by the local community—sometimes with government support, as with Danehy Park—they also help combat climate anxiety by offering people a sense of agency, Mordini says.
“There is something so empowering to see a space go from pavement to a forest paradise right in front of your eyes.”
While there are thousands of Miyawaki Forests in Japan, Europe, and Africa, and several in other parts of the United States, Bio4Climate was instrumental in bringing them to the Northeast. Over the past three years it has stewarded six projects in Massachusetts and consulted on projects in other states.
Because micro forests are so small, some people criticize them as “a trend that won’t make a difference. But it makes a difference to the people in that neighborhood,” says Mordini, who is a member of Mount Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a congregation with a strong focus on fighting climate change. “There is something so empowering to see a space go from pavement to a forest paradise right in front of your eyes.”
Bio4Climate Brings the Community Together
Bio4Climate’s goal is to be a leader in establishing mini forests in under-resourced communities in urban areas, which are often the most affected by but least responsible for the effects of climate change, including urban heat islands that keep city streets hotter than rural areas with more trees.
“People feel empowered that this is something they can do” that will benefit future generations, Mordini says.
From the very beginning and throughout the process with every project, the nonprofit focuses on partnering with marginalized and frontline communities where a forest is proposed.
“It’s really important to put climate solutions back into the hands of the people most impacted by these issues” of biodiversity and climate change, says Maya Dutta, Bio4Climate’s director of regenerative projects. “They should be our climate leaders.”
Among other partners at Danehy Park, Bio4Climate worked with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which provided knowledge about flora local to the area.
“When we look at ecosystem restoration, it’s really important to involve Native communities and Native people because they have a deep relationship to the land,” says Dutta.
To encourage community interest, Bio4Climate presented public education sessions, including at First Parish UU in Cambridge. They pitched the idea to the city of Cambridge in 2020, and the forest took root in September 2021.
First came three days of soil preparation by the city’s public works and forestry staff to undo human-induced damage, with a special focus on restoring microbial and fungal life. One hundred volunteers, including children, planted 1,400 saplings in a day, and others spontaneously joined in after noticing the activity while playing on nearby soccer or softball fields, Dutta says.
Marylee Smunitee Jones, a member of the Yakama Nation, and representatives from local Native American communities blessed the forest. Rain was predicted but never came, although by late afternoon a rainbow appeared in the distance.
“It felt like a sense of miracle in the work we were doing and the way it was being shined down on,” says Dutta.
Working to Create ‘a Rich Ecosystem’
No fertilizers or insecticides are applied, and a wide variety of local species are planted to avoid unnatural monoculture (promotion of a single species). The trees have doubled in size every year since they were planted, a rate much faster than is typical, Dutta notes.
About a hundred volunteers have maintained the site, but it’s reaching the point where it won’t need human assistance.
“We are creating a rich ecosystem that is meant to self-regulate,” Dutta explains. Adds Mordini, “I want people to understand the difference between a bunch of trees and a fully re-established ecosystem.”
The minimum area for a Miyawaki Forest to thrive is about 1,000 square feet, the size of about six parking spaces across, which is about the size of one planted in the fall of 2023 at Somerville High School in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Because each project involves a different set of species depending on such factors as what’s local to the site, the Somerville High forest includes more oak and hickory trees than the Danehy site, Dutta notes.
Bio4Climate was created ten years ago to promote education about nature’s cycles and systems so that climate conversation isn’t exclusively focused on how to decrease carbon emissions, Mordini says.
Miyawaki Forests are its primary hands-on effort, and it is eager to offer consultations to interested communities around the country, although its capacity for hands-on help is about four forests a year. It relies on donations, which can be made at bio4climate.org.
Working to mitigate climate change “is a place for us to practice our UU values and respect each other and the web of life,” Mordini says. “What I get to bring to this organization and this conversation is that humans can be a positive part of the web of life, we don’t have to choose to be destructive. By studying the fullness of these systems, we learn how to play a role that is positive.”