Greening Ireland: From Pocket Forests to Native Woodlands With Catherine Cleary,S4, E11

[00:00:00] This is Constructive Voices. Constructive Voices, the podcast for the construction people with news views and expert interviews.

Jackie De Burca: Hello to you. This is Jackie De Burca here for Constructive Voices, and today I’m going to hand over to Sarah again who did an amazing interview, a couple of episodes back, and she will be speaking to Catherine Cleary.

Catherine is a very inspirational woman. She’s an author, journalist, and the CEO and co-founder of Pocket Forests. Catherine is joining us today to discuss her projects on forestry and urban greening. She has authored and co-authored four books and being a restaurant critic for their Irish Times for more than 10 years.

But these days, Catherine has turned her attention to nature and climate action. In 2020, she embarked on two projects. One was to establish a social enterprise planting [00:01:00] mini forests in community areas, and the other project was to plant her own native woodland across 40 acres of land. I’m gonna hand over to you now, Sarah.

You’re very welcome, Catherine.

Sarah Austin: Catherine, you’re very welcome. Thanks so much for joining us. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself?

Catherine Cleary: Yes. My name is Catherine Cleary. I’m co-founder of Pocket Forests and an author and journalist.

Sarah Austin: So I’d love to learn a bit more about the Pocket Forest Organization.

Could you explain what this is to us and what inspired you to establish it?

Catherine Cleary: Well, we set up Pocket Forests myself and, and co-founder Ashe Conrad Jones back in 2020 when I think a lot of people were thinking differently about the world because of what had happened with COVID. Certainly in our part of Dublin City where we have very little green space, um, that was suddenly, uh, a really urgent, um.

Of ours, I think, and Ash came across this idea, which had originated in Japan in the 1970s, um, [00:02:00] called, uh, has been called various different things, but Miyawaki forests, uh, named after the botanist, Akira Miyawaki, the Japanese botanist who, who, uh, began the process. And then had come to Europe in 2015 and been re christened tiny forests.

So we just set about talking to experts who’d done it across, uh, Europe and in Ireland as well. There’s a, there’s a group who do what they call Coill Beag, working with Anka in a schools program. So as soon as we reached out, we found out. Not only was it very feasible and exciting, but that actually there was a lot of expertise out there that we could, we could tap into.

So we set off and planted our first forests back in 20 winter of 2020 and spring of 2021.

Sarah Austin: And so how many of these pocket forests have you created so far?

Catherine Cleary: We’re up to about 125 at the moment. I think some of them will be extremely small. Uh, the size of a single car parking space. Um. And then the others would be [00:03:00] larger.

Our largest is, is about a hundred square meters, which is roughly half a tennis court.

Sarah Austin: Wow. And so, I mean, for those of us who don’t know, what, what does a pocket forest consist of? How is it different to, to maybe having a regular urban garden or a flower bed that you might have at home or in a school?

Catherine Cleary: Yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting to kind of discover what the traditions of urban landscaping are. So we traditionally do a lot of grass, so we will call it a green space. A green space when there’s very thin soil and just a, a layer of grass, and then that’s usually mown to within an inch of its life over the summertime, although no mo may is happening.

And then with tree planting, they tend to be planted very widely spaced lone trees. With those grassy areas in between them, there are various reasons given for this, um, sight lines, uh, certain local authorities and, and people aren’t, some are aren’t very happy at the idea of not being able to see what’s happening everywhere in every, every public space.

So what we do looks very different to [00:04:00] that. We’re planting much younger trees than would normally be planted. They’re only 2-year-old whips, so they’re very small. Planted in winter time, um, and planted much more closely together about three per square meter, um, which would be very dense compared to traditional landscaping in cities.

But the result is that they create this microclimate very quickly. The soil changes, um, and we do a little bit of that work before we plant anything as well. That’s part of the Pocket Forest difference I suppose. We do a soil preparation workshop with communities which tries to mimic the conditions of. Forest floor by shading out the grass and adding woody material before the trees are planted.

And then we come back when they’re leafing up around by this time of the year, may, June, and, um, show people what it is that they’ve planted because they can identify it now with the leaf shape and. You know, get them excited about that idea that this is a forest that they have now. They can look after it, they can use it as an outdoor gathering space or classroom.

Um, and, and just a fun place to be. And [00:05:00] also the wealth of insects and bird life and soil life, that that’s going to be created thanks to their efforts. So it’s very much community based. Again, that’s not typical of urban landscaping. That’s the work. That tends to be done by contractors. Um, I’ve just recently had some done in my own neighborhood and, you know, they cordon off an area, bring in machinery, you know, men with ear protection do the work.

Um, so there’s very little engagement from the local people who live in that area. Whereas I think if the local people who live in that area are actually helping to create a green space, and they are much more likely to look after it and be delighted with it.

Sarah Austin: Absolutely. The more you engage with it, the more care you have for it, the more love you have for it.

Catherine Cleary: Yeah

Sarah Austin: and I’m sure as, as many of us engaged in a bit of gardening during the pandemic, I think it made people more connected with nature, more connected with the food they were growing, with the plants around them. You realize the effort that goes into it and I think people are more likely to, to pay [00:06:00] attention to that and to hopefully make use of the resource as well.

Catherine Cleary: Yeah, that, that word attention. We, we were, uh, did a panel discussion this week actually, and that word attention was the take home word. You know, when we pay attention to things, it’s, uh, Mary Oliver, the poet, has a wonderful line “Attention is the beginning of devotion”. So when we pay attention to things that maybe we’ve never noticed before, when we get to know one kind of tree and then we see it everywhere.

There’s something very exciting that happens for both the, the nature itself and how people will look after, but also our, our mental wellbeing. I think we’re, we’re looking after something that’s bigger and outside of ourselves, but very connected to us and very, very healthy. You know, once we give it to the right conditions is very little we have to do to help this thrive, and I think that’s very comforting.

Certainly during COVID, I think people found a pull to that. They didn’t understand why, but they, they did want to get to nature and, and see something that was working and, and wasn’t falling apart as it felt like at. [00:07:00]

Sarah Austin: Mm. And so who would you work with mostly? Would it be with a lot of schools or other organizations?

Catherine Cleary: Yeah, schools are, are a huge part and it’s great to work with the school because they own, typically own their own site and then they can also into the future.

Um, you know, we’re gonna be developing all kinds of ideas for them to use the forest, whether it’s even to use materials from the forest to bring them into crafting or woodworking, um, parts of school and learning. So schools are fantastic. We’ve also worked with businesses that might have their own space or will sponsor a school or a, a local community forest.

Um, residence groups are fantastic as well. Um, we’re working with. A number of local authorities as well. An exciting project in Monaghan Town this year where we’re doing eight different projects around in small green areas. Um, all of them sort of linked to communities and residents. So, you know, there’ll be a great sort of linking up of the tidy towns biodiversity ambitions [00:08:00] with this idea of bringing these, these native trees and shrub into.

Into places where most people live. You know, obviously these are never going to be, um, enough to get our forest cover up to 18%, which is the, the national ambition at the moment up to 18% by 2050. We’re at around about 11% to now. So that means planting 8,000 hectares of tree trees every year in, you know, in rural Ireland mainly.

Um, now we’re nowhere near meeting that. Target and Pocket Forest are obviously tiny, tiny, um. Projects. But what they do is they bring the, um, going back to that word, attention, they bring these plants into people’s eye view, where they live, where they spend their time, you know, where they might see them every day and see the changes that they go through, through the seasons.

Because a lot of what the, you know, the reforestation project is gonna do, is gonna be done in very remote areas on private land where people can’t really engage with it. So [00:09:00] it’s about bringing. Of that reforestation project, which we’re doing at scale across the country, hopefully into the places where people spend most of their time, which is towns and cities.

Sarah Austin: Each of these pocket forests has a very small impact, but, but then by bringing attention to it, it’s hopefully making some young people who will be more interested in taking climate action in the future, who may then go on to. To be more involved in environmental action and maybe will plant more trees, hopefully, and can lead to bigger action.

Catherine Cleary: Definitely. I think there’s really good research showing that when people begin to look after to care about nature, you know, their, all of their environmental thinking shifts into. You know, caring about, um, keeping the planet habitable and taking positive actions for the environment and doing it as, as a community brings all of that positive energy as well.

You know, you’re not the lone weirdo out there who’s the tree hugger and you know, you’re [00:10:00] actually in a tribe of people who really care about this and who, um. Together or bringing the energy that’s needed to it. Um, you know, because at various different times people may be busier or can’t get involved.

And yeah, the joy of doing it is showing people a really concrete positive action. Concrete is probably the wrong word, but you know, on the ground action, um, that they can take. In their own garden. And you know, if they only have a small garden they can do, they can do this at some point or in their community.

And then that feeds into ideas about how we can support the bigger picture stuff with farmers and landowners.

Sarah Austin: That reminds me then that you took this to the next level yourself. Um, planting your own native woodland. Can you tell us a bit about this forest you’ve planted in County Roscommon?

Catherine Cleary: Yeah.

Myself and my husband Liam bought some land in, in Roscommon. Um, it was the. Cheapest land we could find at the time. And, uh, in three different plots. It’s not all in one [00:11:00] area. It’s, it’s separate by about a mile and a half between all of the three areas. Um, and it’s marginal farmland. It had been being grazed, um, by the original owner and then by neighboring farmers who were renting the land.

Very, we very rushy, very difficult to farm. Um, you know, the, the kind of small income. Average income that you see in in farmers in Roscommon is kind of testament to that difficulty of this land. So it was pretty perfect, we felt for, um, establishing a native woodland. So we, we worked with the Forester, Bernard Kiernan in the area, and he got the license out, uh, a from the department after a while.

I think it took nearly a year for that to happen. So it’s been very slow, but it’s been planted now for two years and, um. We planted 20, around about 26,000 trees on the land with, when I say we, that was was a team of very expert, incredibly skilled planters who came and [00:12:00] planted 18.

So at the moment we’ve been minding them the last growing season, just sort of trampling down the grass and rushes around them to try and get more light to them. And now this season, most of them are above that grass and rush line. So they’re really just, they’re really just taking off now and it’s becoming, rather than a field of rushes, when you look across it, you can see that it’s a field of trees or several fields of trees.

Um, so it’s very exciting and the wildlife there is. Amazing. We’ve been watching hairs running around in, in, around, around the grass and rushes and bird life is astonishing at this time of the year. It’s just, there’s just so much there.

Sarah Austin: It sounds like a little haven.

Catherine Cleary: It really is. Yeah, it really is.

Sarah Austin: And what is the, what kind of work do you have to do to, to maintain this, to kind of encourage the, the trees to grow?

Catherine Cleary: For the moment, uh, we just need to make sure that this, the smaller trees are getting a little bit of extra light. So again, a bit of trampling. Um, some, some, uh, [00:13:00] owners will spray off, uh, competing vegetation, but we are not gonna do that because obviously we don’t wanna poison the land. And there’s evidence that when you do that, you get more hare damage on your trees because there’s a bear area around the trees.

And actually the grass isn’t really competing with the trees, it’s. Providing another little bit of, of, um, shelter and protection to it. Mm-hmm. So at the moment, it’s really just to, to make sure that, um, there’s, there are no invasive species coming in. Uh, so luckily we didn’t have, we had one single rhododendron plant, which was dealt with immediately.

Um, we need to keep an eye on that. We need to keep our feet on the ground really, and, and watch what’s happening. Make sure there aren’t any deer coming in and doing serious damage, um, because we don’t have a deer fenced. But yeah, for the next two or three years. It’s that kind of maintenance, keeping the invasive species, deer and rhododendron primarily out of the forest.

And then it about year five or six, we might start making some paths down through the trees, maybe thinning out some of the trees to, to [00:14:00] provide edges and clearances and things like that because they can just, again, improve the biodiversity of, you know, one kind of closed canopy. Forest is great, but. The more edges and the more gaps and the more wet areas and all kinds of different habitats you have in that, the better.

And then we have about 13 acres that isn’t planted. So again, we just need to make sure that any wildlife there, ground nesting, birds or waders are, you know, protected and, and being able to enjoy their habitat as well. So there’s a kind of a leave it alone, but just also keep an eye on it stage, I suppose.

Sarah Austin: And so you recently had some screenings of a documentary, the forest midwife, all about this forest project. And so what does this documentary explore and what was the goal?

Catherine Cleary: The film is made by a filmmaker called Beta Begar, and she, um, applied to the Department of Agriculture under their forestry promotion, um, program for the funding for the, for the video, or for the film.[00:15:00]

And it was a really interesting, kind of, I suppose cataloging or or documenting of what we were trying to do. So she filmed with us last year in February when we had a gathering of friends and neighbors from around the area come along and help with some tree planting. And she interviewed the local farmers who were very interesting about the.

The feelings about forestry coming into the land and what a loss it is for farming and, and the kind of a grief that underlies that, that, you know, when you put your land, if you’re a farmer, if you put your land into trees, it means an end of your farming time. Um. And that people disappear from the land if trees come onto the land.

So, you know, it was great to get those voices into the film along with my voice of, you know, as, as Sean, one of our neighbors refers to me a city girl coming down to do this. Mm-hmm. Um, because the last thing we want is for this to be something that. Is confined to, you know, [00:16:00] environmentalists, anybody who owns land, if they can, you know, if they could plant an acre of it into trees, suitable land.

Now, not necessarily. You know, bog land and, and areas like that. Wetlands are, are often doing an even better job for climate and biodiversity than they would do if they were planted with trees. So, you know, you do have to know what it is that you’re planting into. But there are many, many ways for landowners to put and farmers to put trees onto the land.

So the documentary was all about, um, exploring our, our emotional. Attachment to land and our feelings about trees and Beta had a, what sounded to me like a slightly crazy idea at the start, but it’s worked beautifully of giving a voice to one of the trees in a hedge on the farm, which is an, an old ash tree.

Um, so she commissioned Kerry Ní Dochartaigh, who’s a wonderful poet. A poem in the voice of this tree, which is called the Mother Tree, and that is threaded throughout the documentary and it’s voiced [00:17:00] by the wonderful actor Mary McAvoy, who has planted her own forest actually in on her family farm. Um, so that’s added a kind of a magical layer to it.

I feel. Um, at each screening I’m always struck by how attentive the audience is. Um, you know, people are riveted by this story and, um. I, I’m amazed by how interested people are in it and what’s happening and, and you know, it’s an evolving story because we only captured about, I think it was six or eight months of filming.

So we got from, you know, the winter planting time to the, the summertime. When everything was greening up and, and it was suddenly all lush and beautiful, we didn’t even capture the wintertime, you know, where it gets very icy and frosty. So hopefully there’ll be some kind of, um, longer version, or, and I know Beta is hoping to work with, uh, farmers and forest owners to do a longer series of films about their work, um, because the more people can see this, um, no more than Sean [00:18:00] Ronayne wonderful documentary, um, with Kathleen Harris.

Called Birdsong where, you know, he’s recording all the birdsong around the country. I think that story of a person or people or community of people and nature and how they’re working to try and help nature because, you know, it’s the most powerful. Um, it’s the, it’s the force that’s gonna do most of the work.

You know, you, you take one good step and nature takes 10. So, you know, those kinds of stories I think are very, um. Inspiring, hopefully for people, but also comforting to know that there are people out there doing this work. Um, because a lot of time we don’t hear about it.

Sarah Austin: Absolutely. You can feel that you’re very much alone in your actions sometimes, and it’s nice to know there’s a community out there.

Catherine Cleary: Definitely.

Sarah Austin: And have you gotten any feedback from farmers and landowners, for example, on the documentary or even just face-to-face on the project?

Catherine Cleary: Yeah, I mean,

the, our, we had a farmer in the audience in Galway, um, on Tuesday when we [00:19:00] had a screening down at the University of Galway where we have a, a wonderful pilot project, which has been funded by the Lives to Good Foundation.

Um, we had an unveiling of our sign there, and then we did a, a screening of the documentary and we had a farmer in the audience who is an organic farmer. And he was asking people to really look at, you know, what did you eat today? Did you eat organic food from an Irish farm? You know, are you willing to pay the, the price of that for the farmer and the role that we as consumers play in, in how our land is used and what it’s being used for.

Um, we had a panel member, Dr. Karen Morrisey, who’s an environmental economist, but she grew up on a farm and. She’s got, so she’s got a huge understanding of that culture and how it works. Um, but she’s also got a huge understanding of the need to do less beef and dairy in Ireland and do much more sustainable agriculture, whether it’s, you know, growing vegetables and crops that we will need if we, you know, [00:20:00] somehow or another can’t get them in from abroad because most of those crops are coming from abroad now.

Um, and also the, the environmental impacts of intensive livestock farming. So this farmer was very articulate about, you know, the good farming and the kind of, if you’re getting your meat from an ethical, regenerative or organic Irish farmer, then it’s, it’s a really great thing to be able to eat. You won’t be able to afford to eat it every day because it will be much more expensive, and that’s probably a good thing for your health and health of the planet.

So, yeah, fascinating discussions and actually showing one of the farmers who’s. Very articulate in the film about that sadness and grief that happens when, when farms are planted, um, up into trees, is now looking to plant some of his land with native woodland, I think inspired again by seeing and being part of what we’ve done.

Uh, so you can see how these conversations, when they happen face to face, are much more. Open to everybody’s [00:21:00] position. You know, there’s nothing worse than getting into a row with Farmer online. I used to do it. I don’t do it anymore because it’s a really toxic space, um, where something that could be agreed face to face is just gonna turn into a big row.

Um. And name calling and the idea that we’re in some kind of war is mad because we’re all in this, we’re all in the same boat here. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we’re all dependent on our soil. We’re all dependent on the, the clean water, on, on clean air. Um, and there are so many really positive things that can be done in this beautiful country that we’re lucky enough to live in to, to make it healthy for everybody.

So we just have to talk over the very loud voices of industry, which are. Very well resourced. Um, you, you know, they have all the money and they can pay all the storytellers. Um, and we just need to tell better stories and truer stories, um, because a lot of what’s being told to us about the state of our agriculture system is just not true.

Sarah Austin: [00:22:00] It is so important to have these open discussions where we have everyone’s voice is particularly that of, of farmers who are caring for so much of the land across the country, um, and providing a space where those who are interested in taking action for nature, for the climate have somewhere where they can have their voice heard or where even if they, they don’t know where to begin, where they can.

Have that discussion and find out what little steps we can all take and showing others that it’s not necessarily that you’re, as you mentioned earlier now, a tree hugger if you want to take some little action.

Catherine Cleary: Yeah. It’s so much about your sense of identity and I see Jackie’s just put in a, um, a link to talking trees in, uh, in Amsterdam.

I must look that up. Thanks Jackie. Um, yeah, it is that identity of, um. You know, there’s huge pride in among young farmers, and I’ve heard it talked about, uh, in various different ways about, you know, how successful they are, how large their herd is, how hard they’re working in the same way, you know, that we’re all in this kind [00:23:00] of obsession with being busy and important and, and continuing to grow and grow and grow.

And if you can shift that into huge pride in this is the number of bird species I have on my farm. These are the number of native trees that are growing You. Has to come with a sense of pride. And that sense of pride has to be mainstreamed because the money is there. You know, it is more lucrative to plant a native woodlands now in many marginal farms and a lot less work than to, to try and farm a beef herd.

Um, but yet you still don’t have farmers doing it. Uh, so there’s something else there that needs to move. Um. It is that what’s worth paying attention to? You know, and at the moment, the mainstream advice is that you have to maximize the calories that you’re producing on your farm because that’s, you know, that’s the, that’s the winning thing to do.

You know, it goes back to 2015 when the, when the, um. [00:24:00] Milk quota was lifted and farmers were really, really encouraged by banks, by politicians, by everybody to farm. Way more animals than they had land or resources to do. Um, and they’ve gotten themselves into large debts. They have an incredibly busy work life now.

Um, and these herds are pumping out milk. But you know, we’ve seen the effects on water quality. We’ve seen the effects on mental health as well. I think there’s a huge discussion there to be had with farmers about their mental health and what the benefits they can get from actually taking a step back from commodity farming, intensive farming, and looking at what their previous generations did.

And as I say, having pride in something other than the size of the herd.

Sarah Austin: Thank you so much, Catherine. That was, I think you’re doing a lot of work, not just in terms of action, but in terms of the education as well about what we can all do, little, little steps we can take, and the bigger system level [00:25:00] changes as well.

Catherine Cleary: Yeah, and we’re hoping to be able to share, you know, what we’ve learned about making pocket forests. In the last five years, you know, put more sort of resources on our website later this year where people can do this themselves and we’ll, you know, we’ll give them all the steps, um, because we’re realizing there are only so many we can do and we’re almost fully booked this year.

Um. So, you know, the way to scale it from here on in is to, to give people the skills and the tools, make sure that they can access good quality Irish grown native trees and the right mix for, for their area. And, and then hopefully we can really get this happening in many, many places.

Sarah Austin: Brilliant. And where can people find out more and get in touch with you at pocket Forests?

Catherine Cleary: So it’s pocket forests, all one word, ie. Um, and there’s an info at there email that you can get in touch with us or, um, yeah, through the, through the website is probably the best. If you’re in Galway and the University of Galway, there’s, you can have a look at our pilot project there. It’s behind the ILAS building on the [00:26:00] north campus and there’s a lovely QR code there where we’d love you to do a survey and let us know.

What you think of it. How you feel about the space, because part of the, I suppose part of what we’d like to do now is get some more survey. Information from people about what they, what they feel about the space. We know what we feel about it and how rich we can. We feel it will, you know, the richness it will add to urban areas, but, um, we’d really like feedback from people who have visited those spaces as to what they think of them.

They can also visit the digital hub on Thomas Street. Besides container coffee, we have a little forest in Skip and. Sit and have your coffee there and do a little forest bathing in a very, very urban part of the city. Um, and we’re doing some workshops next month at the Digital hub. They’ll be free for people, but they’ll need to book them online.

And we might ask for a little donation just because when people book free workshops, they sometimes don’t turn up. Uh, so, uh, yeah, so they’ll be starting in June. There’ll be Wednesday workshops every Wednesday, [00:27:00] lunchtime in June, uh, in the digital hub. So we’d love for people to come along to that.

And again they can book through the website or follow us on Instagram where we are at PocketForests one word.

Sarah Austin: That’s brilliant. Thanks so much, Catherine. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation today.

Catherine Cleary: My pleasure. Thank you, Sarah.

Jackie De Burca: Thank you so much, Catherine and Sarah. That was a really excellent interview and there were some things that came up during your conversation that we will include on the program page.

That are relevant to, for example, uh, Dr. Nadina Galle, who is the person who originally told us about the talking trees in Amsterdam. Absolutely fascinating as well, and very much linked to Catherine’s work and what came up during this interview. So we’re gonna, you know. Pop that into the episode page, so you can also explore that as well, because it’s very much interlinked.

We did do a series with Dr. Nadina Holla in 2024. It’s a mini series and she’s very inspirational. [00:28:00] Also, apart from that, there’s another episode that I’d like to mention that is very much tied into how health and nature are. Are intertwined and that is with Jane Finley. All of these will be on the episode page so you can dig deeper into these topics.

And be sure to check out the valuable information on the episode page that you could find on your podcast app or on our own website. Constructive. voices.com and there is the information there relating to what Catherine mentioned about workshops that are meant to be the following month, but because we record obviously in advance, they’re in fact this month in June and they would be really, really interesting.

So don’t miss out. Be sure to check out all of Catherine’s information and check out her website and consider going to the workshops. Thanks so much for listening.

This is constructive voices.