Lake Mac Tiny Forest
- intouch Magazine
- May 22, 2023
- 2 min read
Tiny Forest, Big Impact
Wednesday 24 May & Sunday 28th May
This week Lake Macquarie city greening group – Releaf Lake Mac with the support of 60 Teralba Public School students and 80 Community volunteers will plant 800 native species, as part of the Hunter’s first ‘Tiny Forest’ pilot project.
Releaf Lake Mac project lead Anna Noon said that ‘Tiny Forests are an internationally proven method of tree planting and community building that takes a tennis court size (200m2) piece of underutilised public land, improves the soil and densely plants native species previously known to occur naturally on the site. This method, which was developed in the 1970 by Japanese botanist - Akira Miyawaki delivers rapid land regeneration and provides vital habitat for plants and animals.’
‘The Lake Mac Tiny Forest project is about inspiring the community and providing them with hope for the future. It aims to highlight that there are concrete solutions to complex issues like the impacts of land clearing due to rapid population growth, climate change and mass species extinction that community volunteers can initiate and deliver. Ms Noon noted that ‘like any pilot project, there were definitely some challenges along the way,’ ‘we were asking people to do something that had not been done before here in the Hunter (or many places in Australia), so land approval delays and red tape challenges were expected, but by forming numerous collaborative partnerships and by sticking to our guns we’re super excited to report the project is well on track to be a huge success.’
‘We’ve had incredible support from the community and local businesses such as Hunter Water and Origin Energy who’ve backed the project since its inception in 2021. Lake Macquarie City Council assisted by identifying and approving a parcel of land at Lake Crescent, Teralba, and we have a team of community volunteers who have signed up to provide ongoing maintenance to the forest site for the next 2 years. It’s really been a whole community effort’.
One of the most exciting parts of the project Ms Noon noted is that ‘we will be undertaking a two-year citizen science study led by Earthwatch Australia, which will provide insights into the benefits of Tiny Forests to biodiversity, carbon capture, urban temperatures, and water retention.
Anna Noon
ReLeaf Lake Mac – Tiny Forest Project Lead
