Bringing back Life "Miyawaki Way"

 

The Miyawaki Method

Akira Miyawaki (1958, Japan) learned about the emergent concept of PNV (potential natural vegetation) in phyto-sociology. He visited Shinto sites and observing their chinju no mori, or “sacred shrine forests.” Miyawaki determined that these were time capsules, showing how indigenous forest was layered together from four categories of native plantings: main tree species, sub-species, shrubs, and ground-covering herbs. Akira Miyawaki designed his own system for planting forests.

(Courtesy: AFFORESTT)

It works like this: the soil of a future forest site is analyzed and then improved, using locally available sustainable amendments, for example, rice husks from a nearby mill. About 50 to 100 local plant species from the above four categories are selected and planted as seedlings in a random mix like you would find growing naturally in the wild. The seedlings are planted very densely 20,000 to 30,000 per hectares as opposed to 1,000 per hectare in commercial forestry. For a period of two to three years, the site is monitored, watered, and weeded, to give the nascent forest every chance to establish itself.

During this early period, the plantings compete with each other for space and access to light and water—a battle that encourages much faster growth. In conventional afforestation techniques, 1 meter of growth per year is considered the norm. In the Miyawaki method, trees grow about 10 times faster. Once stabilized, the forest is left to flourish, forevermore, on its own without further interference.

The Sharma Algorithm

An engineer with a native zeal for quantifying systems, Shubhendu Sharma turned Miyawaki’s method into a set of assembly line instructions. Using an algorithm similar to Toyota’s assembly line that produces several different types of cars, each with its own requirements, he derived his own formula to make a multi-layered forest with plantings that also have different time, space, and other needs. Although his company offers consultation, training, and the actual building of forests, anyone can email Afforestt and receive access to Sharma’s graphs and instructions for planting a forest, start to finish. “Dr. Miyawaki invented this process, and whatever I understood of the methodology I wrote it as a standard operating procedure, so it could be replicated,” says Sharma.

From that manual, a would-be forester learns how to determine soil type using the “ribbon test;” how to collaborate with a local nursery to find truly native species; how to prepare the planting site; and how to arrange saplings, three to four per square meter, into a grid. (When planting his backyard forest, Sharma accidentally introduced two non-native species—neither he nor his source knew any better at the time—so he includes detailed instructions to help others avoid this mistake.) Now that Sharma has computerized the process, he’s back-working it to turn it into an analog, paper-based system that those without computer access can use.

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(Courtesy: Afforestt & JSTOR Daily)