Tennis court-sized ‘tiny forest’ packed with 600 trees will tackle air pollution

 A “tiny forest” the size of a tennis court is to be planted in a UK first to try to cut air pollution.

Some 600 native trees – from oaks, birches and elder to dogwood, crab apple and blackthorn – will be planted in Witney, Oxon, in a 200sqmetre plot to create a fast-growing, dense forest.

Witney town council staff and councillors and Earthwatch Europe, an environmental charity, will use a new system of dense planting to mimic the effects of a natural British forest. A hundred “tiny forests” have already been planted in the Netherlands.

Tiny forests store carbon in trees and soak up water to reduce local flooding, attract wildlife, reduce dust to improve air quality and cut noise pollution, their backers say.

Tony Juniper, the head of Natural England, said: “It could be a good thing. It would hold less carbon than a big forest, but would support different kinds of wildlife and, assuming people can visit, will potentially have health and well-being benefits too.” He said it may be a more effective way to combat climate change than planting street trees “which won’t accumulate much soil organic matter”.

Britain is to get its first “tiny forest”, an area the size of a tennis court planted with an array of native trees to replicate a natural woodland. Campaigners say it is ideal for urban areas, yet it should also stand as wider proof that there can be soul-stirring alternatives to the barren pine monocultures that now swaddle our hillsides.

While we are preserving diverse native trees, however, can we not preserve our diverse native vocabulary, too? Definitions vary, but plenty would reckon a tennis court to be below the size that qualifies as a forest. Besides, there is an array of fine terms to describe a smaller area of woodland, from spinney and copse to shelterbelt. Perhaps quibbling about such things risks missing the wood for the trees – but a holy tiny forest wouldn’t be half so special as a sacred grove.