GoingGreen the environment
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ou may not yet have heard about Bermuda’s micro forests, but soon you may not be able to escape seeing them. The island’s first micro forest is flourishing near the Railway Trail in Flatts, and a second is being planted on the South Shore near the Warwick playground. These tiny forests will also be popping up near schools across the island. The micro forests project is a collaborative effort among many different agencies. The Bermuda Zoological Society, the Parks Department, and several good corporate citizens came together to make the idea happen in Bermuda, to plant more endemics and crowd out invasive species. Dr. Ian Walker, the principal curator at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo, pointed out that micro forests are a different way of conservation that Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki pioneered. “We’re looking to do multiple sites, explains Dr. Walker. “Jennings Road in Flatts was our proof of concept to see how it worked and that went really, really well, so we are expanding to other sites.” He advises that the traditional way of doing conservation and restoration work, to bring back native and endemics, is to typically cut a 26
Young volunteer planting at the Flatts micro forest
hole in an invasive forest, leaving a windbreak so that the young plants can grow up. But this method is very intensive and requires a lot of manpower. Dr. Walker remarks that it also requires a lot of maintenance to keep invasives from encroaching upon the newly planted native trees and plants. “That’s the type of conservation we’ve been doing on Trunk Island today, which has been very successful, but very labourintensive. Many volunteers are required to make it successful.” The Miyawaki method involves
planting a dense native and endemic forest, plus some fruiting trees and other plants. Dr. Walker states that the goal is to find areas that can support a dense micro forest that are already open, so no tree cutting will have to occur. “We used help from volunteers, our junior volunteers, our science club, and our weekend warriors to prep the location in Flatts,” explains Dr. Walker. Gone were the weeds and cane grass, and in its place were olivewoods, buttonwoods, palmettos, and cedars. The understory includes Jamaican dogwood, snowberry, seven-year apple, turkey berry, and dog bush. “Turkey berry doesn’t mind shade so it can be under fairly dense trees,” revealed Dr. Walker. “The whole point is to crowd out invasives, so we’re planting close enough with plants that can survive in the different canopy levels — shade or Going Green 2022