The group’s experiments also include other plants that are not needed in Jordan. In Marka, this includes saplings Pistachio lentiscusa wild pistachio tree — about 50 in the Jordan Valley — and Celtis australissometimes called the European hackberry, which is very rare.
However, not everyone believes that these small forests will help solve the natural problems in Jordan. Climate change has made the land hot and dry, and the forest needs to be rehabilitated. Currently, only about 1 percent of Jordan is still forested, and even those areas are at risk of wildfires, wildlife festivals, and illegal logging. Nizar Obeidat, who works with forestry and regional research by the Jordanian National Agricultural Research Center, says the Miyawaki method should not be replanted in the country in any way. The method is “very expensive because you use small areas with very high density and compact the soil using grass and manure,” says Obeidat.
The great benefits of the small urban forests that the Assaf and Motoharu group plant can be in realizing the importance of green spaces in rural areas among ordinary people and powerful people. Dana Mismar, a volunteer worker, stated: “You have to raise the right generation to have these good jobs. “And the government should invest in this. That’s the most important thing. What is more important than throwing away a plant that will never exist again?
Assaf repeats the same thing. “Nowadays, we are very different from living things. It is like an external issue, ”he said, citing the knowledge of the lost plants. “For me, it’s also changing the natural environment in cities, people’s lives, and their memories.”
He considers the potential of the city’s children to recognize and appreciate plants, such as the valonia oak, the Jordanian tree, even though they have not left Amman. “It will be part of their memory, and this makes me very happy, because we can’t protect what we don’t care about and what we don’t like, and we can’t care about loving what we don’t know,” says Assaf.
Part of Assaf and Motoharu’s efforts includes building partnerships with local nurseries. Fadwa Al-Madmouj, a 25-year-old volunteer and agricultural engineer at a nursery in southern Amman, has been instrumental in exploring various Jordanian seed distribution methods. In 2019, the first year of the nursery working with Assaf and Motoharu, it grew to about 15 local species. Today, that number is almost 50 — and, most importantly, customer interest is growing.
Al-Madmouj states: “During my first year in the nursery, people laughed at wild plants. “We now have a large group that loves the natives. They bring friends, they bring the family to buy local plants. “
Marka’s work, says Al-Madmouj, “is a small but significant forest, where it conveys the message: ‘Look, we can do it, and you can too. And we can all do something. ‘”
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