Picture the scene: a dense forest of countless native trees, a thick canopy shading a nearly invisible ground blanketed by shrubs and plants in a state of nature brimming with life. Now, picture the same thriving in a suburban neighbourhood. The forest is the size of a tennis court - you could encircle it in a matter of seconds - and it has grown to almost six metres in little more than a year.
The tiny forest is a complete native ecosystem - hundreds, almost 1000 native trees and shrubs planted in a dense matrix calculated to perfectly reflect the sprawling natural environment in which it (somewhat literally) jumped out of the ground - but it takes up about the same amount of space as a suburban garage.
There's a unique harmony to the spectacle. The trees grow so quickly because their proximity to each other fosters fierce natural competition as the canopy rapidly expands to support a root system plunging downward with equal vigour. The soil has been overturned and loosed, primed with rich organic material to promote growth. It's an afforestation method conceived by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki around the 1970s for establishing rapid-growing natural and organic new forests in barren areas, and it has become a darling of the urban reforestation and conservation movement.
A Miyawaki forest can be planted in as little as three square metres and grows about 10 times faster and 30 times denser than the naturally-occurring variety and contains almost as much as 100 times the biodiversity.
"A tiny forest is a small, but complete ecosystem," Anna Noon said. Ms Noon is the co-founder of the conservation outfit Groundswell Collective in the Hunter and the botanist who has built six tiny forests throughout the region with more on the way.
She said the tiny forest was a practical, straight-forward answer to the complexities and anxieties around climate change, particularly as it pertains to urban sprawl, and an answer to practical carbon capture, flood mitigation and urban heat reduction in the suburbs.
"I think that's the very cool thing about it," Ms Noon said of borrowing the Japanese example and applying it to the Australian environment. "There are about 3500 tiny forests around the world - in Japan, India, Europe, the Middle East and now here in Australia - and if you follow the steps, everyone should get the same outcome which is rapid growth and high levels of biodiversity."
Ms Noon was due to travel to Yokohama in Japan on Friday to speak at an international symposium of Miyawaki forest creators at the university where one of the first tiny forests was planted. She has been seconded to a panel discussion there covering various case studies of tiny forests around the world, including in the Hunter, and how and where the forests have been built in different contexts.
"There is a kind of instant gratification element that I think people in this day and age love," Ms Noon said of the concept. "We put them in the ground and 12 months later, they are six metres tall. That's not very usual when you're planting trees ... that is one of the benefits of it; we are taking generally high-maintenance patches of grass that are being mowed routinely and turning them into these fully-functional, self-sustaining ecosystems.
"I've just met so many incredible community members from planting these forests, and those people have gone on to be lifelong friends with me and with each other. So it's really connecting people together and connecting people to the land and to place."
Ms Noon was the Lake Macquarie Volunteer of the Year in 2024 for her work creating tiny forests at Teralba, Edgeworth, and Gateshead as well as others at Tocal, Cardiff Heights, Cedar Bush Creek and Booragal.
Nominations for the 2025 Volunteer of the Year opened again in October. Nominations can be made through the local council website.
