Urban forestry through Miyawaki technique

The inadequate amount of forest space and green cover in Pakistan is a point of serious concern as the lack thereof is not only hazardous for environmental security and sustainability, but also raises survival risks for humans and wildlife alike.

The danger was signaled out by Shahzad Qureshi, the founder of Urban Forests – a project for creating tiny forests in urban areas using the Japanese Miyawaki method – during a sitting held at IPS on February 7, 2022.

Qureshi revealed in his presentation that the number of trees globally have been reduced from 6 trillion to 3 trillion because of increase in global mean temperature, which is caused by human activities. The green cover of Karachi itself is even less than 1% according to Husqvarna Urban Green Space Index (HUGSI) and Crowthers Lab, he pointed, and that is why the city witnessed a devastating consequence of this phenomenon in form of an extreme heat wave in 2015, which resulted in a number of deaths alongside material loss.

The speaker shared that following the events of 2015, he realized the significance of growing more trees and plants through afforestation method of a Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, which can result in 10 times faster and 30 times denser sustainable growth of natural native vegetation, which effectively leads to the production of 30 times more oxygen (O₂) and 30 times less carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Qureshi apprised that the realization compelled him to start Urban Forests in November 2015, with a pilot project to create a tiny forest in a garbage dumping ground in Clifton with the help of a Miyawaki method expert. He informed that the creation of this tiny forest till now has resulted in the plantation of saplings by over 9000 people in the Clifton public park, and has also led to the creation of 8 more tiny forests in Karachi and 2 in Lahore so far.