Miyawaki Nature Lab in Thiruvananthapuram gives visitors a feel of how micro-forests transform the soil and the environment
The Hindu
Miyawaki Nature Lab in Thiruvananthapuram shows how micro-forests transform the soil and the environment
Leaves glitter with raindrops as we walk under a canopy of verdant greenery. The Karamana river, in full spate, can be heard raging about 750 metres below. The air is redolent with fragrances of soil, leaves, spices and flowers. Creepers, branches and leaves brush against us as we make our way around this tropical Eden. Butterflies glide among the ixora, making the most of the weak sunshine, a green frog hops under a stone, and a fat brown millipede moves forward busily.
As I make my way around Miyawaki Nature Lab, Gayathri Nair, my guide for the day, shows me the variety of plants that have greened this once barren hill within six years.
When MR Hari, CEO of Invis Multimedia, sold his ancestral property in 2007, he invested it in a hillside plot of two acres near Puliyarakonam, nearly 15 kilometres from Thiruvananthapuram; it was once planted with Acacia. The monsoon had denuded the area of its topsoil and no amount of tree planting helped in arresting the water from draining away from the hillside. Hari recalls planting 500 saplings every year only to see them wither away as the rocky and pebbly red soil could not retain water.
He says blasting at a quarry on the other bank creates tremors that disturb the water table in the region. “The little water retained used to drain away through small cracks in the rocky bed that occur due to the blasting,” he adds.
Hari began rearing cows and hens to see if the land could be fertilised with organic manure — he was clear that he did not want to use chemicals.
In 2015, Hari came across a video on Miyawaki planting, a method of restoring forests pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. He had spent a lifetime specialising in restoring degraded land by growing native vegetation.
So, in 2017, Hari began experimenting with the Miyawaki model on a small plot on his property. He was helped by Dr. Mathew Dan, a soil scientist, Cherian Mathew, a farm journalist, and Madhu, Hari’s farming assistant.