SARASOTA, Fla. — The Stoneybrook Golf and Country Club in Sarasota will soon be home to a microforest in an effort to combat climate change.
Members of the Suncoast Urban Reforesters (SURF) were out on Wednesday prepping for their plans to plant more than 1,000 trees on the golf course. They say miniature forests are beneficial for the environment since they are fast-growing and capture carbon from the air.
The effort is part of a larger movement that's swept the world over the past year. Micro forests have recently been springing up across Europe and here in the U.S. However, it has its roots in one Japanese botanist's 50-year-old idea.
In the 1970s, botanist Akira Miyawaki planted thousands of these forests in Japan, Malaysia and other parts of the world. The idea being that planting the same species of trees that grow naturally in an area can create a diverse forest community.
Scientists have found that these small forests can not only grow faster but are more biodiverse compared to traditional planting methods. They also found the forests can store 40 times more carbon than any one species of plant, helping aid in the global effort to reduce carbon in the air.
There's also one other benefit of micro forests that can help Florida significantly. The dense canopy of the forest slows water runoff, decreasing the impact of water pollution and preventing flooding.
If you're interested in helping plant the micro forest in Sarasota, you can sign up for Saturday's planting day event here.