{"id":564900,"date":"2026-03-26T04:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564900\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T04:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:52:14","slug":"the-growing-movement-to-plant-dense-forests-in-urban-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564900\/","title":{"rendered":"The growing movement to plant dense forests in urban areas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Caitlin<\/p>\n

March 26, 2026 \u2014 3:42pm<\/p>\n

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AAA<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve heard of tiny homes, but what about tiny forests?<\/p>\n

A movement is growing in Australia to plant dense, diverse forests on plots of land as small as a tennis court.<\/p>\n

The tiny forests, scientists say, deliver outsize benefits by reducing urban heat, locking carbon in the soil, reducing run-off and localised flooding, and boosting biodiversity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Also called pocket, micro or Miyawaki forests, the sites planted so far in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra and many regional towns are also proving more resilient to weed infestations than other forms of bush regeneration.<\/p>\n

The method was pioneered by Japanese ecologist and botanist Professor Akira Miyawaki in the 1970s, but took off internationally in about 2015 with a project in the Netherlands. It involves preparing the site with soil remediation, studying the original plants that would have grown there and trying to replicate that from shrub to canopy level, and planting three to five plants per square metre.<\/p>\n

\"AA tiny forest nine months after planting at Cedar Brush Creek on the Central Coast.<\/p>\n

Dr Alex Callen, a restoration ecologist at the University of Newcastle, said scientists were watching the trend closely because it had been unclear how the Miyawaki method would translate to Australian ecosystems and landscapes, especially with rainfall becoming more unpredictable because of climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the data is pretty young \u2013 most tiny forests have only been studied [for] between three and 10 years and that\u2019s not a long time when you think that forests can take hundreds of years to mature \u2013 we are seeing very high success rates compared with traditional ecological restoration work,\u201d Callen said.<\/p>\n

\"VolunteersVolunteers planting a tiny forest on a property in Wyong Creek on the Central Coast in December 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing very limited weed invasion \u2013 and weed invasion in ecological restoration sites in Australia is one of the number one reasons that they fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not-for-profit group Groundswell Collective has established 20 tiny forests since 2023, mostly in NSW \u2013 on the Central Coast, in Lake Macquarie and the Hunter region, and Orange in the Central West \u2013 and one in the Cook Islands.<\/p>\n

Charity Earthwatch has partnered with councils to plant a number of tiny forests in urban areas \u2013 including Glenfield and West Pymble in Sydney and Glen Waverley in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\"AA tiny forest 12 months after planting at Teralba Public School in Lake Macquarie. <\/p>\n

Ecologist Dr Grey Coupland has driven the concept of tiny forests in Perth<\/a>, particularly in the city\u2019s schools, while in Canberra<\/a>, landscape architect Edwina Robinson has been a key proponent.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one in Moorooka in Brisbane. And in Tropical North Queensland, a larger plot of land has been planted according to the method \u2013 Dingo Pocket Miyawaki Forest, which spans 750 square metres, but is densely planted with 3000 seedlings from 50 native rainforest plant species.<\/p>\n

\"VolunteersVolunteers planting a tiny forest in December 2025 on the 16-hectare property belonging to Justine de Mestre and Mark Hope in Yarramalong Valley, on the Central Coast. <\/p>\n

Callen said there was a lot of evidence about how tiny forests counteracted urban heat because of the cooling effect of more plants in the ground. The research on biodiversity was still emerging, but was promising because the structure of the vegetation mirrored mature forests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that when we plant densely and when we plant pioneer plants \u2013 early colonisers of space \u2013 with plants that grow more slowly into canopy, what we\u2019re doing is hastening a forest to maturity,\u201d Callen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gives it what\u2019s called structural complexity, which means there are more places and spaces and resources for plants and animals to live, and that\u2019s a very good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Callen said the location of the tiny forests and whether they connect patches of remnant vegetation would also determine biodiversity value.<\/p>\n

Anna Noon, founder and director of partnerships and programs at Groundswell Collective, said there were also social benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey connect people to nature, they connect people with each other, they help with wellbeing and resilience and providing hope for the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Get to the heart of what\u2019s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"CaitlinCaitlin Fitzsimmons<\/a> is the environment and climate reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the social affairs reporter and the Money editor.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 26, 2026 \u2014 3:42pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-564900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}