The team’s test plots also house some of Jordan’s rarest plants. In Marka, including the saplings of Pistacia lentiscuswild pistachios – there are only about 50 left in the wild in Jordan – and Celtis australissometimes called European hackberry, even rarer.
However, not everyone believes that these small-scale forests will help alleviate Jordan’s environmental problems. Climate change has been making the country hotter and drier – and the need for reforestation is greater. Currently, only about 1% of Jordan is still forested, and even these areas are threatened by wildfires, grazing and illegal logging. Nizar Obeidat, who specializes in forests and soils at the Jordan National Center for Agricultural Research, says the Miyawaki method is not suitable for reforestation in the country in any way. This method “is very expensive because you use a small area with high density and some manipulation of the soil with straw and manure,” says Obeidat.
The biggest benefit of the tiny urban forests that Assaf and Motoharu’s team are planting may be to raise awareness of the value of green space in urban areas for both ordinary citizens and those in power. “You have to raise the right generation to have these meaningful projects,” said Dana Mismar, a volunteer in the group. “And the government should invest in this. It is the most important thing. What’s more important than losing a factory that won’t be here anymore? ”
Assaf repeats the sentiment. “Today, we are so out of touch with native ecosystems. It’s like this foreign matter,” she said, citing local knowledge of the lost plant species. “For me, it’s about recreating indigenous ecosystems into the urban fabric, people’s lives and their memories.”
She thinks about the potential of city kids to recognize and value plants, such as the valonia oak, Jordan’s national tree, even if they’ve never left Amman. “It’s going to become a part of their memory, and this really excites me, because we can’t protect what we don’t care about and love, and we can’t care less,” Assaf said. and love something we don’t know.
Part of Assaf and Motoharu’s effort involves establishing partnerships with local incubators. Fadwa Al-Madmouj, a 25-year-old volunteer and agricultural engineer at a nursery south of Amman, has been instrumental in researching different ways to propagate Jordan’s native plants. In 2019, in the first year of working with the nursery’s Assaf and Motoharu, it developed about 15 different local species. Today, that number is about 50 people — and importantly, customer interest is growing, too.
“My first year in the nursery, people laughed about the native plants,” says Al-Madmouj. “We now have a large group that loves locals. They bring friends, they bring their families to buy native plants.”
Project Marka, Al-Madmouj said, “is a small jungle, but it delivers a message to everyone: ‘See, we can do it and you can do it too. And together, we can do something. ‘”
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