The project’s goal: “Replant love” to increase biodiversity and cooperation and competition between plant

By Barbara Burke

Special to The Malibu Times

They gathered on the early morning of Nov. 5 at Juan Bautista De Anza Park in Calabasas adjacent to the Las Virgenes trail, armed with shovels, mulch, and native seeds collected and propagated in Malibu Foundation’s nursery.

“I think it’s a really good experience that helps the environment,” Volunteer Jude Potenza, 8, said. “You think you’re just helping a little, but I realize that I’m helping to change the whole world!”

The project’s goal: to “replant love” by installing a microforest mimicking nature, thereby increasing biodiversity and cooperation and competition between plants. Such microforests also bolster plants’ survivability by encouraging less dependence on water, thereby significantly reducing the temperature in the area where they are planted, a welcomed, beneficial side effect in our warming world.

The De Anza microforest, the first in the Santa Monica Mountains, is composed of densely planted, hyper-local native plants in a multi-layered small forest that acts as a self-sustaining ecosystem that reconnects back to nature. The concept of planting microforests is based on botanist Akira Miyawaki’s method of afforestation which involves very densely planting local, indigenous, and regionally adapted shrubs and trees, while ensuring that no two plants of the same height are side by side, which allows for maximum growth and fosters natural vegetation restoration. The planting technique not only provides shade, but also cleanses carbon-based greenhouse gases from the air.
Microforests provide many benefits, including native insects and animals returning to the microforest, which supports soil health and creates a thick forest quickly.

Los Angeles County’s first microforest in Griffith Park is a huge success and became self-sustaining in the two years since its planting. The county’s two microforests will provide a seed bank, which will ultimately enable more microforests to be planted.