The Israeli embassy in India has launched a project to increase the country's green cover by promoting the Miyawaki technique, in the capital and later in tier two and three cities. Plans have been drawn up to initially grow one million trees and scale up to 10 million trees across ten cities by 2030.

It may be mentioned here that a recent report says India has the highest number of cities with the infamous tag of “world’s most polluted cities,” largely due to diminishing forest cover. The rapid pace of urbanisation has also aided the shrinking of the green space. India has signed the Paris Agreement to increase its green cover from 25 to 33 per cent, in a phased manner.

Israeli ambassador Naor Gilon said recently at a function “We are delighted this initiative places educational institutions at the forefront of the mission. By engaging with Eco-clubs in these schools and colleges, children, parents, and the local community all benefit from increased awareness about the importance of planting trees and being mindful of activities that cause pollution.”

The Embassy of Israel in India, in collaboration with Million Miyawaki Foundation, a Non-Profit entity, has officially joined the ‘Million Miyawaki’ project, a community-led initiative aimed at improving air quality in Indian cities through mass afforestation in tight urban spaces. 

Recently, at the Government Boys' Senior Secondary School of Moti Bagh in New Delhi the Israeli ambassador Naor Gilon joined a tree plantation drive by school children to promote awareness among the youth towards environmental sustainability.

Sahil Sethi, one of the Co-Founders of the project, says, “Our collective goal is to help plant one million trees in and around Delhi NCR using the Miyawaki technique, which helps grow trees to their adult height in just two years, thus helping absorb more CO2 faster. Doing this at scale will improve air quality around this region.” 

According to Juhi Kilachand, co-founder of Million Miyawaki Foundation, says, “Miyawaki is a technique developed by a Japanese botanist Dr Akira Miyawaki in the 1980s, that helps grow fully grown dense forests i.e. 20 Feet high, in a short time of just two years, thereby revolutionizing the paradigm of urban afforestation by transforming small plots into mini-forests''. 

The Israeli embassy initiative aims at planting one million trees in the NCR, by creating ‘forest-like’ Miyawaki Plantations of 600 trees each, with a variety of up to 30 different species all sourced locally. These plantations are so dense that all 600 trees can be grown in a small space of just 2,000 square feet. The team aims to complete such plantations across at least 1,500 schools or colleges by 2027 so that all the million trees grown this way start to clean up our air effectively as early as 2029.