Just drive about 17 kilometres from Fateh Chowk Hyderabad towards Tando Muhammad Khan, and you can find a small green spot known as Mir’s Mini Forest along the road on the left side. A canal carrying fresh water drawn from Indus’s Kotri barrage is irrigating the land forest. An oasis between the agricultural lands of big landlords of Hyderabad, the Mir’s Mini Forest is a piece of green pastures, where an ecosystem is developed for growing trees and natural habitat for birds.
Spread over about 5 acres of land the Mini Forest is also a display centre for urban forestry.
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With a variety of trees (about 400 different trees), the mini forest is a brainchild of a progressive landlord Mir Shah Mohammad Talpur. Although this forest is not designed on the pattern of the Urban Forest method of Miyawaki on which our other friend Shahzad Qureshi has already established an Urban Forest in Clifton Karachi, Mr. Talpur has also planned to utilise the Miyawaki method in the future expansion of his current forest.
Invented by Japanese Doctor Akira Miyawaki, who is a botanist and professor since 1980, urban forestry has an edge to grow trees rapidly in a natural environment. Using the Miyawaki methodology, one can create native urban forest ecosystems much more quicker. 15 to 30 different species of trees and shrubs are planted together, and the Miyawaki method suggests that each plant helps others to grow in a much faster speed. This plant community works very well together and is perfectly adapted to local weather conditions. It would take about 200 years to let a forest recover on its own, but with the Miyawaki method, a similar result is achieved in 20 years.
Mr. Talpur has learned the Miyawaki method from a trainer who came from India and he has also set up a small display at a piece of land of 3 by 3 meters by planting different types of trees by digging three feet and then replacing it with different grades of earth. “It requires a lot of investment and manpower for using the Miyawaki method and for the time being I have only two employees to look after this mini forest so this mini forest is grown on the traditional method,” he said.
He has imported many varieties from different countries and grown a number of local fruit trees as well.
Mr. Talpur allows families and groups from Karachi and Hyderabad and other parts of the country on a prior booking system to visit and explore the mini forest, where local fruit trees, honeycombs, birds and flowers are grown in a natural environment and environment lovers can spend their day time to be with nature.
A group of nature lovers from Karachi at the platform of The Linkers visited Mir’s Mini Forest on Sunday, November 22, 2020, and explore its natural beauty. Pl. click on the link below to look at some pictures taken by the writer.
