– JB from Restore Forest

So my first question is: “When you are at a party, how do you say in few words who you are and what you do?”

– Daan from IVN

Well, I say I’m Daan. I have a wife and two kids. I work for IVN Nature Education. Within IVN, I’m responsible for the Tiny Forest Program. With tiny forests, we create these little urban jungles for kids with outdoor classrooms so they can connect to nature, learn about biodiversity, nature, climate change and learn how to restore nature.

– JB

The value with IVN and tiny forests is really to include kids, right?

– Daan

Yeah, definitely. The first tiny forest I did, I just wanted to see if the Miyawaki method would work in the Netherlands. Still, we planted it with two different schools. After the first planting day, I knew this needed to be part of the whole concept of the tiny forest. We started integrating outdoor classrooms, which are basically wooden benches with a circle, where teachers can instruct and develop the whole curriculum. So we train teachers on how to do outdoor learning in the forest.

We’ve developed a whole curriculum from ages four to twelve years old. Every group of kids can do an outdoor session one time a month. That’s how we try to get kids more outdoors, inspire teachers to take learning outside of the classroom. Because the classrooms are quite big (30 kids in one classroom), it’s hard for teachers to go on excursions. With a tiny forest next door, it’s easy. It’s a low threshold. So what we hope is that we’ll grow a generation of kids who know about tree bonding and about nature regeneration.

– JB

And how did you discover the Miyawaki method of mini-forests, and how have you applied it over the years?

– Daan

Well, I think, just like you. I discovered it with the Ted Talk of Shubhendu Sharma which came out in 2014. I saw the Ted Talk popped up on my Facebook, and I instantly felt in love with the idea. So I reached Shubhendu out, and a week later he already responded. Then we started to see how we could cooperate and work together. I wanted to create one forest just like this here in the Netherlands. First, we had to get the forest. It took me a year to find a location and to get the money to be able to plant the first Miyawaki forest in December 2015 in Zaanstad, the first in Europe.

– JB

So then after this first tiny forest, you continued to plant other forests? 

– Daan

Yeah, we did. It took quite a while because it was quite a challenge to find the next few locations. It took us a year and a half to get to four forests. Then a year later, in 2018, we had about eight or nine forests, and that’s when we got the major donation from the postcode lottery. That allowed us to really scale up funds and then we got the real means.

– JB

So you won the lottery, it was an accelerator for the Tiny Forest program. Can you tell us more about the story about the lottery?

– Daan

Yeah, I think you need a little bit of context. The Dutch postcode lottery is one of the major private donors in the world. They organize a lottery based on your postal code. Half of everything they collect with the lottery, they give away to charity. We’re one of the beneficiaries, one of the 80 beneficiaries who gets an annual donation from the lottery. If you’re a beneficiary, you’re also allowed to apply for extra projects. It provided us with all the means we needed to go from zero to 100 tiny forests, for us to train and set up this Tiny Forest education program because it’s a lot of effort to create a whole curriculum. We gave Wageningen University an assignment to research the effects of tiny forests on biodiversity, carbon sequestration, heat island improvement and also the water retention capacity of the forest. We set up partnerships with municipalities.

It made it more attractive for other funders to support the projects as well. That’s a weird thing. If you get money, it’s easier to get more money. It’s a snowball effect. Sponsored by the Postcode more people wanted to join. Some people want to join things that are successful.

Create 100 tiny forests, partner up with municipalities, do research into the method, that really allowed us to scale up. It gave this big stamp of approval. After we actually said, we’re not going to spend this, we’re going to ask municipalities to pay for half of the forest. That’s how we doubled our budget from the start! After we said that municipalities have to apply to us from then on. Because previously we were begging “Oh, please, can we get these spots?”. We turned it around and let them come to us. That was a big help in our success to let them apply. We did have the cofounding, they co-funded, and then we could work out partnerships. So many municipalities applied, I think 70 applied, we had 24 spots. Then the regional government provinces wanted to cofound the municipalities in their area.

For us, it really massively grew within one or two years. It was hard to keep pace with the number of forests and the number of partnerships that we created. The first year in 2018, we planted about 24 tiny forests and years after that, every year, 60 or 70 tiny forests. Since then, it’s exponential. But now it’s going to slow down a bit. I think we’ll end up the next few years, we’ll go steadily to maybe 25, 35 tiny forests a year. We need to start doing less ourselves and more empower people to do it themselves. Because for us, it’s a lot of organization work. The next step for us is to take more of the role of the inspirator and the trainer. That way we can create more forests if we help people to do it themselves.

– JB

And so far in November 2022, how many mini forests have you already planted?

– Daan

 Right now, somewhere between 175 and 180 tiny forests in public spaces.

– JB

Usually finding land and money is the biggest challenge for mini forests. What is your advice to mini forest creators to get land and money?

– Daan

What really works for us is the money part. We haven’t had a lot of problems with that. I’ve been doing a lot of fundraising in my career, so I think that’s one of my talents that I’ve been able to use to get that done. The main thing about fundraising is to create the right narrative. What’s your story and why is this important to you? Because when I first started telling people about tiny forest, I told them about this amazing method with rapid growth and 100 times more biodiversity. I don’t know what’s been the means, but there wasn’t any science evidence to support those claims, so there was a lot of criticism. Then I just went back and I thought, well, why do I want to do this? Well, it’s for these kids that I meet in cities that I’ve never been to nature. What if we can give them their own forest as they plant it? I started to connect it to why I really wanted to do that, and then I gathered and I reframed the approach.

“I found this exciting new method. I’m not sure if it’s going to work, but I really want to try, because it’s promising. It would be great to see if it works and maybe get science involved”. Being honest about your own doubts was the key, because you don’t know if it’s going to work. Then the municipalities said that it was very interesting because people can do it themselves, it’s small. By not being really bold with the claims, but being vulnerable, “we don’t know, but it’s exciting, I want to learn, so let’s try it”.

Trying something new and connecting it to something you really care about is the key for fundraising, because people love working with somebody who really cares about something. There’s always money for good ideas and new ideas. There’s always people out there who want to support that and see if it works. Those will be useful for fundraising and basically for finding the location.

By creating a personal connection, showing them why this is important, it really helped together with science, to collect data on the effects. The science really helps us as well because then you have something to say. People were skeptic about the method with tree density, carbon sequestration and biodiversity on the rise. Of course, you can plant the forest a different way as well. This is the way we do it and we know by the science from it that it works. Collecting evidence helps too.

With the partnership with the university, they collected some data. That’s important that we don’t collect data on our own program. A third party renowned university with ecologist does count. We recruited and trained volunteers to help with the data collection because it creates more engagement and you get more data. For location, it’s the same thing as fundraising. Show them why you care, invite them to try something new and work on collecting evidence.

– JB

According to you, in the Miyawaki method, what is the most important step to get a sustainable mini-forest?

– Daan

I think that the most important step is looking at life and mapping the Reference forest. Native trees survey is the most crucial step. To go to the Reference forest site to see what the species are growing there naturally. So you get an idea of the forest community you want to create at your site. That’s basically the life work of Miyawaki. He spent about ten years mapping the entire potential natural vegetation of Japan, from north to south. He created twelve books, mapping every herb, shrub tree that grew there naturally. That’s when he made the discovery that just 0.3% of the plants in Japan were native species. He then decided from the 70s until he died last year that he needed to restore the potential natural vegetation of Japan. That’s his last work. It is his legacy. That’s the most important step: to go to the reference forest to get a clear idea what are the climax species and how can we make sure that they get a place in our new forest with a great mix of species.

– JB

On the project management side, what is your best return of experience for getting the community on board?

– Daan

With the community, we tried to do something different. Usually municipalities say “We want the forest here and now you go and get the community excited”. The first thing we did is to turn that around. We’re going to ask people who wants a tiny forest in their neighborhood or in their schoolyard and they can apply. With this approach, we get the people really excited about this and the forests are really wanted. Otherwise you’re going to have people opposed to it. That’s the booster to collaborate with people who are very enthusiastic, who want to create a forest like this and are happy they actually won it. The other thing is to engage people as soon as possible. When we start a project in a particular city, we let people with initiatives apply and then we work on the forest and they will organize an evening where we present the idea, where we’ll talk about the design and their wishes.

With the landscape team, we’ll create a design, we’ll show them. We’ll engage them in the planting ceremony with the kids, and then we’ll create a maintenance plan with them. “So what are you going to do? What’s the municipality going to do? What’s the school going to do?”. After we go through all the steps, then it’s time for them to do. It’s their forest so that they have to take care of it in the future. We actually have kind of a ceremony or party where we say “we’re going to leave, so it’s your forest, it’s not our forest, we’re not in charge anymore, it is your duty”.

– JB

What part do you enjoy the most in the tiny forest projects?

– Daan

The planting day! That’s the thing I enjoy the most. Those are great days, just outdoors, everybody is happy and engaged. You’ve created this new patch of nature. I really enjoy it.

I do really enjoy also the native tree survey. Going into the forest. It allows you to visit all these special places. What I really enjoy, too, is working with landscapers and landscape designers. I like giving the training and introducing them into the story of the Miyawaki forest and where it’s special and how we can create this haven for life. Be the spokesperson for Tiny Forest, that’s very enjoyable for me, too.

– JB

And what is your secret mission, your real purpose behind planting community trees?

– Daan

I think I’ve already told you it’s not so secret anymore… At first, to me, it was really about reconnecting children to nature. Because three out of four kids in the Netherlands grow up in an urban environment, in a city. We’re never really far away from nature, but a lot of kids never go there. They never go to a forest or a beach. That’s what we wanted. Then you can do two things: either organized tours for kids to visit nature or bring nature into the city. I have been really working for about seven, eight years on bringing nature back into cities. Small patches with tiny forests, we’ve even done indoor forests with air purifying plants or food forests, or green school yards.

While I learned more about soil, trees, native plants, climate, biodiversity, I saw how it all connects. I think my mission changed a little, too. Now I want to be part of the regeneration of Earth. Tiny forest is good because it fits, but it’s just a tiny first step in the right direction. We need to restore a lot of land and basically inject it with life again. So I think my mission changed a little bit from reconnecting children. To me it would be very important to restore nature and bring back our long lost forests or meadows. My secret mission right now is that in the future I will look more to see if I can work on regeneration projects and large scale ecosystem restoration. I’d like to do that.

– JB

In a year, if I come back with a bottle of champagne, what would we celebrate? What is your next big challenge?

– Daan

I’m working on an online course that covers more than the method. We already did shoot six instructions videos about the method, but I want to teach people about finding a location, getting funding for you, how to build a team around that, how to use for education, for citizen science. I hope to have that up and running in the first quarter of 2023.

I really enjoy meeting people like you, interested in Miyawaki forests. Yesterday I met Benjamin from Denmark. Next week, somebody from New Zealand and a couple of more people coming over. So I’m hoping that we can set up a network of learning where we can keep on meeting. I hope that we’ll find a way to connect all these forest makers, maybe digitally or maybe even physically.

We have also this nature movie maker in the Netherlands. He’s made large cinematic productions about the Dutch delta. We’re working on actually a movie theater film on Tiny Forest to see how the forest grows and how kids grow up with the forest and make a movie about that.

I’m hoping I’ve got some really iconic forests coming out there. In Amsterdam, there’s this new building. Robin wood it’s called. It’s a big wooden building, all of it is made out of wood. In the middle, there’s a big community garden, 1800 square meters. At the center of it there will be a tiny forest. That’s going to be a very prestigious project. I’m really excited about that. There’s also this other company who’s constructing a new head office, and they bought this piece of land from the neighbors, very expensive. They want to convert it into a forest, rather than making money out of it. They work on probiotics and they want to share the story with doctors. That our probiotic biology and our gut is very much related to the soil.

Those are projects I’m really excited about to do. For tiny forest, I’m hoping that we can make it easier for schools and for people to do it themselves so that we don’t do a lot of organization work anymore, but that we empower people to do it themselves. That’s the next step for us. So the European network creates more of these urban landscapes. Those examples really help to inspire people to do something more.

– JB

What 3 resources/books have been helpful for you in your journey about nature restoration?

– Daan

Let’s see, the book from Peter Wohlleben “The Hidden Life of Trees” was a big eye opener for me. We even visited him in Germany. He made a little tribute video for Tiny Forest. We are very happy about that. The actual Miyawaki book, “The Healing Power of Forest”, was rather helpful. It isn’t so clear about the method, but I really enjoyed just diving into the life of Miyawaki, and it’s his legacy. It’s very recent, I read Hannah Lewis’ book about the “Mini-Forest Revolution”. I’ve read a lot of books about the forest bathing, the Shinrin-Yoku practices. That’s something we can integrate, connect in another way. Instead of knowledge and recognizing trees, be more mindful and use all your senses.

– JB

And who is the next person you would recommend meeting to inspire on mini forest or even broadly on nature restoration?

– Daan

Well, one person is James Godfrey-Faussett. He’s from SUGi. I think he’s truly a good person to interview. He’s very inspiring.

I don’t know if you know Commonland. They do large scale ecosystem restoration. So maybe Willem Ferwerda. He’s the CEO. He has a great story to tell. But it’s about the larger ecosystem restoration projects.

And you can speak to maybe Victor Beumer. He’s from Earthwatch Europe, they do a lot of science.

– JB

This leads us to the last question. If you had a huge billboard with a message for everyone to see, what message would you write for it?

– Daan

It’s a great question. Maybe “May the forest be with you!” with a little Yoda there or “Convert your garden into a mini forest”.

There’s so much talking. Just do things, be informed, but do things, go for action. We need action. That’s what I truly love about this project, because I didn’t know anything about it but I liked trees and I love nature. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. So that’s what I like, it’s very empowering. I like Paul Hawken. He wrote this big book on regeneration and he wrote Hannah’s forward words. He says that mini-forests are a very powerful action because anyone can do it in their business, in their school. That’s the main thing about the Tiny Forest projects.