Christopher Horn, Director of Communications
The site of American Forests’ planting in the Audubon Greenway outside of Pittsburgh. Credit: Christopher Horn.
Every once in a while, the communications staff at American Forests has the chance to join our programs team in the field at one of our restoration projects. Last fall, accompanied by our multimedia intern, I attended a volunteer tree planting near Pittsburgh on a project funded by our longtime corporate partner, Alcoa Foundation.
While we viewed the trip as an opportunity to gather photos, video, partner interviews and other materials we could use in the future, we were also interested in a few technical aspects that our local partner, Tree Pittsburgh, had planned for the project.
In a section of the Audubon Greenway, a 161-acre swath of previous agricultural land that has been transformed into a network of trails and woodlands used by hikers, cyclists and equestrians, nearly 60 volunteers helped plant 2,670 seedlings on a half-acre hillside of former horse pasture. If you know about some of our other planting projects, you may be wondering how we were able to fill such a relatively small space with so many seedlings.
The answer: the project incorporated a dense planting technique, known as the Miyawaki Method. To absorb tsunami impacts, ecologist Akira Miyawaki densely planted seedlings along the coastline of Japan and found that very close spacing between newly planted trees helped them out-compete non native and invasive plants that would normally slow the seedlings’ growth. He also found the trees grew faster by competing with each other, resulting in both a rapidly growing native forest and a low-maintenance technique for establishing a forest where one hadn’t been.
Our friends at Tree Pittsburgh will monitor the Miyawaki site’s progress over the next few years, especially regarding the improved habitat for small mammals and birds, and who knows — maybe we’ll try this technique again at a different site. One thing we do know, however, is that we’ll continue to have projects that reduce habitat fragmentation and improve watersheds by reforesting large tracts of former farmland.