Pocket Forests Talk
Catherine provided practical examples of how people can make a difference in their local community by taking a small piece of land (between 6 and 50 square metres) and growing pockets of native forests. The technique used by Pocket Forests is based around planting very young native trees and shrubs close together – the Miyawaki method which replicates how tress grow in nature.
![](https://iadt.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Catherine-Cleary-1.jpg)
Pocket Forests have planted almost 5,000 native trees in 101 different urban settings with the help of more than 1,500 volunteers from local communities.
Catherine pointed out that 11% of Ireland is covered in trees compared to the EU average of 38% and that only 2% of Ireland is native tree coverage.
Catherine finished by saying that she would be delighted to get involved in a project here at IADT once the tree planting season is finished.
Catherine is co-founder of Pocket Forests and has almost three decades experience as a journalist and author. She has created several podcasts and written four books. Catherine writes a weekly sustainability column for The Irish Times.
The talk was organised by Rupert Westrup of the Department of Technology + Psychology and was funded under the Education for Sustainable Development theme of the N-TUTORR programme.