According to Cara Buckley with The New York Times, a growing number of “tiny forests” are appearing across urban areas in the U.S.  

In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing water runoff, and providing homes for wildlife, “[T]iny forests can help lower temperatures in places where pavement, buildings and concrete surfaces absorb and retain heat from the sun.”  

The concept was pioneered by Japanese ecologist Akira Miyawaki and suggests that people are the best stewards of nature. What the world needs is not some return to vast, unspoiled “wilderness” by massively reducing the human population, as so many suggest. Instead, we need more of this: creating space for people to use their ingenuity, resources, and innovation to increase creation’s fruitfulness. 

Our screens and concrete jungles disconnect us from God’s creation, while bad ideas about “nature” and the environment treat humans as its biggest problem. But humans were created to care for the rest of creation. In fact, only humans can.