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In Spanish, the Japanese concept Satoyama, It is translated as “people” and “mountain.” They are rural environments in which communities manage forests and farmland based on a sustainable system; Taking advantage of their resources, without harming them, in a kind of sacred pact between human and nature to live in harmony. A notion that today, more than ever, needs to be applied in Nezahualcóyotl, a municipality in the State of Mexico, where asphalt gray is the rule and green is the exception. Nezayorkas he is known jociously, burns to the rhythm of the cumbias that sound at full volume in their streets, which have been built on what was the Texcoco lake. Now they are literally on salt.
After World War II, Japan put all his efforts in an ambitious economic recovery plan with a consequence: urbanization and industrial growth broke that pact with nature throughout the country, including Satoyama. The environmental crisis began to demonstrate at alarming levels of air and water pollution, and diseases in the inhabitants. But in the seventies, the Government approved environmental laws to mitigate it and in 1973 decreed that the factories of a certain size had to allocate 20% of its surface to green areas.
Akira Miyawaki, a botanist born in Okayama, had been cataloging the native species of her country for years. His experience was returned by a key figure in the attempts of the companies to comply with the new environmental regulations. His first job was with Nippon Steel, a powerful steel manufacturer, creating forests in his production plants. The method quickly expanded to other companies such as Tokyo Electric Power Company, an energy producer, and Honda Motor Company, a key piece of the automotive industry. Thus was born the Miyawaki method, a afforestation technique that creates rapid growing native forests and high biodiversity amid cities or even deteriorated land. This planting style makes vegetation compete for resources, accelerating its growth. A forest planted with this technique can grow in 30 years and does not need maintenance after three years of growth.
The method has been replicated in Italy, India, Brazil, Chile or Jordan. And now he arrived in Nezahualcóyotl, a municipality in the east of the State of Mexico and, in practice, a suburb of the huge Mexican capital, which this May 6 welcomed volunteers and professionals in its technological university to give life to this new forest in a disuse terrain of 600 square meters.
Nicolás Corral, Chilean Silvicleter who led the plantation of this forest, explains that the process starts with a backhoe that “decompacts the ground and gives it a last voltage to let go.” Then, they incorporate organic matter – Compost and urban agricultural and industrial waste – to “revive it.” The plantation is made in high density, with three plants per square meter, because, according to Corral, “the forest is not regenerated in grids or grids as in conventional reforestation, which come from a agricultural productive mathematical thought.” This way of sowing, he says, seeks to imitate the dynamics of the natural forest and thus, “maximize survival, growth and interaction between fauna, flora and fungi.”
In a few years, this space could register a temperature of between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius less than its urban environment, says Nicolás Corral. “More rainwater is going to be infiltrated, less runoff, and that will accelerate spontaneous soil recovery.” The forest will also work as a source of seeds dispersed by birds, a live nucleus in the middle of the cement. “There was nothing more than weeds here, now it will be a space for restoration and environmental education.”
In total, 25 native species and 1,500 plants have been planted. According to Gabriel Orrego, Chilean Bosquicultor, species were sought with different ecosystem functions: “Plants that know how to find phosphorus in the soil, which are nitrogen fixatives, which bring pollinators. Among more diversity, we have greater ecosystem complexity and that means resilience.” To do this, agaves have been used, Opcas, Cylinder-Opuntias and cardones, own species of arid areas such as this. Also broom and Dodoneasthat prepare the way for more leafy vegetation. Tepozanes, ash and coloring, as well as some key herbaceous, such as Asclepiasto promote pollination.
María Guadalupe Morales works in the administrative services of the University. The day of planting guides volunteers. It moves with self -confidence throughout the terrain: the hands is dirty with earth, answers phone calls, gives indications and observes, with satisfaction, how that land that nobody looked before is being transformed. Lupita, as her colleagues call her, points out the hills that are seen in the distance, crammed by a grayish house stain. He remembers his adolescence, when he went up to those mountains, still green, and there was not so much pavement: “All the sowing and the vegetation ended. It is a lot of pavement that is now, and everything occurred following the colonization. Many people began to migrate, and everything concentrated on this side. Today there is another tree in the streets, but nothing more,” he says.
The origin of Neza, as the municipality is known, explains the ecological challenges he faces. The first inhabitants, migrants from Guerrero, Michoacán, Jalisco, Oaxaca or Puebla, began to settle on the shores of Lake Texcoco. Over time, the houses were based on the dried lake, a saline and hostile terrain. The expansion was fast, without time for planning, without taking into account the conservation of green areas.
Today, 62 years after its official creation, Neza experiences the effect called “Heat Island”, which concentrates high temperatures. It is also one of the most densely populated municipalities in the country, which pronounces its environmental challenges. The effect, explains Andrea Guzmán, urban planner and manager of the creation of this forest in Mexico, is intensified by the accumulation of dark and hard surfaces such as pavements, industrialists, cars and airs. “They are areas without foliage, where there are no plants or trees that absorb heat. In their place, the pavement retains and reflects it, making the temperature increase even more.”
Therefore, the planting of this first “pocket forest”, as the Japanese botanist method has also been called, is a symbol for the community and for students. Guzmán, who worked hand in hand with Sugi, a global platform dedicated to the creation of these forests in urban areas, knows that this is not a total solution to the problem, but one step: “Miyawaki forests will not come to solve all our problems,” he says. “It is not a pill, but they will solve a problem of the thousand we have. We need a solution system and this is one.”
