Thiruvananthapuram: MV Govindan, Local Self-Government and Excise Minister of Kerala, has raised a Miyawaki forest at his official residence in the state capital.
Earlier, the Local Self-Government Department had ordered all local bodies to arrange Miyawaki forest during the silver jubilee of the People’s Planning Programme.
However, only a few local bodies implemented the order.
Moreover, in April last year, the Minister had issued a directive to set up green areas known as ‘Pachathuruthu’.
Now, Govindan himself has set an example in this regard.
The miniature forest at the official bungalow, named Nest, is located in an area of 3.5 cents and has 300 trees.
Some space in the compound behind the residence was lying abandoned for some time.
This area was cleared and the Miyawaki forest set up with support from Forest Minister A K Saseendran.
Forest Department arranged the Miyawaki woods under its ‘Nagaravanam’(urban forest) project.
At Govindan’s residence, saplings of 45 varieties of trees were planted. With six or seven saplings of each species, there are now around 300 trees, including Asoka, jackfruit , mango, rosewood, pine, ‘vayana’, ‘poovaraku’, ‘narakam’, ‘seemanelli’, ‘nelli’, ‘paneerchamba’, ‘mandaram’ and ‘kudambuli.’
Announcing the challenge on Facebook, the Minister said that all local bodies could set up similar forests.
Under the Miyawaki method, a forest is fully grown within 20-30 years, compared to 150-200 for a natural forest. As many as 152 saplings are planted on an area of land measuring one cent, which leads to competition among them for sunlight.
As a result, the plants grow approximately five times faster vertically than in a natural environment.
The method has been named after the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, who devised it.
