CHENNAI: How to turn a public place which is an eye-sore into greenery? Chennai Corporation’s dense Miyawaki forest in Kotturpuram can be a great example.
In an age when concrete buildings are taking over all parts of the city, a visit to the Canal Bank Road along Kotturpuram would surprise you with trees standing next to each other.
The city corporation has planted about 40 varieties of trees including naval maram (Java plum), thekku maram (Teak), and iluppai (Mahua) in the Miyawaki style, among other trees.
Apart from just giving a pleasant scenery for commuters, the dense forest now has also home to various birds.
Eight months ago, the 23,000 square feet land outside the Kotturpuram railway station in Chennai was an eye-sore filled with construction debris and household waste. Many commuters and residents in the past have complained of how the place was stinking of garbage.
Following repeated complaints, the civic body cleared all the encroachments and planted 2020 trees in the Miyawaki style, a Japanese method of planting trees that is known to take less space and have faster growth.
Fast-forwarding to October 2, the place has now turned into a dense forest with tall trees, with much rejoice to all the residents.
While the one at Kotturpuram is the first Miyawaki forest planted by the civic body, another one has been planted at Valasaravakkam.
What is the Miyawaki method?
In the 1980s, Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki introduced this method of reforestation to restore indigenous ecosystems. In this method, the top-soil of a selected region is recovered to a depth of 20 cm to 30 cm by mixing soil and organic compost.
According to a 2010 journal on the effectiveness of the Miyawaki method, positive afforestation results were observed in many parts of the world in just two years, whereas it normally takes a decade for trees to achieve complete growth. The journal says this is a reliable way to create "native forest by native trees".
It takes four days to set up a tree in the Miyawaki method. The pits are dug and left to dry for one day. After that, various ingredients for manure like sugarcane bagasse, vermicompost, dry leaves, cocopeat, and other manure are mixed with sand and dumped in the dry pit for three days before planting the sapling.
Alby John Varghenese, Regional Deputy Commissioner (South), Chennai Corporation, said that the idea was to plant native species that could grow in a self-sufficient way.
“The whole land area used to be an eye-sore with various debris and garbage. The Miyawaki method has shown good results and the civic body is set to plant trees in the same method in three more locations in the city," he said.