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| Tabaret forest concept |
Have you ever been to a National of Provincial park? I don't know if this happens to you but when I an in the deep forest, all the trees start to blend together to make a beautiful curtain background. The noises are soothing and the canopy gives a strong sense of privacy and connection.
In my very first year on campus, I proposed an event to image what people would like the campus to look like in 100 years time. The idea being that in the short-term, it was hard to imagine big changes, but on a long time scale, anything was possible. My proposal was to blanket the campus in trees, making us an urban forest in the middle of Ottawa.
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| Tabaret forest concept |
But I am a pragmatist and I know that it is really hard to actually plant a forest on an urban campus in the middle of a major city. Not just because it will take a lot of time to grow, but also because every place you plant a forest is a space that you can't build on and make some money (which is something Ontario Universities are in desperate need of for at the moment). So I left the idea on the side burner and hoped that something would change to help make campus forests actually happen.
Well... it turns something has changed and it is called a tiny forest, sometimes known as the Miyawaki Concept. This idea is the concept of growing a dense forest in a really tiny space - I am talking about the size of a football field end zone or a tennis court.
This is much smaller than what you might have in your mind and that is kind of the magic of the tiny forest... they can basically fit anywhere.
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| 90U forest concept |
So armed with a new growing method and some grant money, the Office of Campus Sustainability has set its sights on planting one of these new tiny forests on campus. If this project works, we could have tiny forests all over the campus providing a tonne of benefits to the campus and the people on it.
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| UCU lawn forest concept |
How does a tiny forest help a campus? The real question is how doesn't it help a campus?
Everything from creating shaded spaces, to sequestering carbon, to flood reduction, to habitats for animals and birds... all this and more. But most importantly, I think that it comes back to that really nice sense of serenity you get when you are in a forest. We could all use a little bit more calm and peace in our lives and I think these tiny forests are a good start.
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| 200 Lees forest concept |
The first uOttawa tiny forest will act as a pilot project to see what these forest might look like on campus and what it will take to maintain them. Hopefully we will have the planting done in the Autumn and by next Spring, we will have a really good idea of how the concept is working. If it does work out, this could be a game changer for green spaces on campus and help the University of Ottawa sequester a bunch of carbon while helping improve biodiversity.
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| SITE forest concept |
In the meantime, stay tuned for more details about the forest and how you might get involved in the planting process. And if you have ideas of where you think a tiny forest could go, send us your thoughts.
~jonathan rausseo - campus sustainability manager
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