Miyawaki Forest Plantation in Mumbai

A pilot Miyawaki plot is often no larger than about 500 square metres, which is realistic to find even inside a dense Mumbai housing society or on a factory boundary in the outer industrial belt, where a multi-acre CSR forest would not be.

Sites on filled or reclaimed ground, not uncommon around the harbour-side business belt, are tested for soil compaction before planting, since the dense saplings a Miyawaki forest needs will not establish in ground that has not been loosened first.

A native species list drawn from the region

Sanjay Gandhi National Park, inside the city's own Borivali suburb, is one reference point for the native tree and shrub species that suit this climate, since a forest planted with species already thriving in the region's own protected green cover establishes with less intervention.

The monsoon, arriving around 10 June and running into September, is the planting window we build the schedule around, since young saplings need the wet season's steady rain to root before the long dry stretch that follows from November.

Planting density for a wetter climate

The Miyawaki method's own guidance sets a denser planting in wetter tropical climates, up to around ten seedlings per square metre in a place such as Borneo, compared with three to five per square metre in a temperate pilot, which is closer to the density we plan for a Mumbai forest than a template built for a drier city.

A denser planting closes canopy faster, which matters on a small urban plot where the forest needs to become self-sustaining within a couple of growing seasons rather than take up years of watering and weeding on land that is expensive to hold idle.