About JB

Forgetting the connexion with Nature

Hello,

My name is Jean-Baptiste CHAUDRON. But you can call me JB, it is much easier 🙂 .

As a kid, I grew up in a small village. I spent my free time, with my friends, in the woods. Building tree huts of all kinds! It was a great place to grow up and a happy period. Except for my dad who was mad because I took all his tools away  🙂 .

Being a curious kid, I have been fascinated with science. I was enthusiastic learning how things work.  My educational period slowly moved me away from Nature. Schools and universities brought me to bigger and bigger cities. I slowly became a city guy, living in a concrete environment, in a soilless environment. And I was happy with it!

I became an engineer in Energy. Willing to change the world but facing the reality with the constraints of an adult life, without idealism. I have started my career in the automotive industry. In 2006, it offered the best opportunity. Trying to improve the efficiency of cars at my level, I found out that sometimes it was not the top priority of a Global Group… In 2012, I switched to a start-up company developing magnetic cooling. A technology to produce cold, without harmful refrigerant gases and consuming less energy. A company that started in a garage and scaled up to 30 employees. It was a thrilling adventure, very stimulating. The company went bankrupt because the market was more willing to buy cheap but polluting solutions. I ended up my employee career in a mid-size company, with an orientation in Energy storage, to implement more renewable energies in the electricity grid.   

A new learning path, supported by actions 

In parallel, I have built with my wife a family with 2 kids. It is clearly a tipping point for a new life! From then on, you do not think only for yourself anymore. You think about the future, about the big picture and what kind of world you will let to your children.

Having kids also brought me back to Nature: walking in the parks, hiking in the forests, trying to show them the remaining biodiversity.

So how do we end up planting Miyawaki forests???

It all started up with a Sunday Family Lunch. This kind of lunch when after a good meal you start discussing and debating. My 2 older brothers and their wives had also 2 kids. So we were thinking about how we could connect our city children to Nature, as we had this chance. Debating also about the emergency of climate change, our carbon footprint and the future we wanted for our Family… Nice talk, but clearly if you do not change things with actions it is a  useless speech. 

At this moment, I remembered a Youtube video of a city planting Miyawaki micro forests. The intent was to reconnect people with Nature and to change things on climate side. From then on, I took the commitment to study this approach so we can plant as a family our first Miyawaki forest.

Starting from there, I spent nights reading books and articles over the Internet. I followed the path of my mentor Dr Akira Miyawaki. He enhanced his methodology over the hundreds of projects he conducted worldwide. As a engineer, I have tried to simplify the methodology for people that were not profesionnal botanists.

Personal change, collective action, incoming impacts

Then we started with a first test parcel, only 40 square meters. To test, measure and learn. Everyone experienced the joy of planting a tree, kids first.

It was so great to work the soil and be in contact with Nature, spend some time together and see the growing trees over the months that we decided to scale for the second parcel up to 100 square meters.

We were pionneers of this Miyawaki method in the neighboorhood. Family members, friends, relatives were intrigued. They came to discuss with us. Some of them such as a retiree grandfather or the school teacher wanted to duplicate this kind of projects with their children. Willing to create projects that make sense. It clearly created a snowball effect and the movement is just starting with new coming projects!

So this is now our Mission: to teach you easily how to plant your own micro forest thanks to the Miyawaki method! With our different trials, we have selected the items that provide the best results, with minimum effort.

Let’s save the planet one tree at a time! Think global, act local, with resilient micro forests!