Pocket Forests is a social enterprise, accelerating social change through the power of people and plants. Pocket Forests was set up in Dublin in 2020 by Ashe Conrad-Jones and Catherine Cleary. Amy van den Broek joined the team in 2022.

Catherine has almost three decades experience as a journalist and author. She is ambitious for forging strategic partnerships in environmental action, aimed at outcomes that facilitate a fair transition toward a more sustainable world. She has created several podcasts and written four books. Catherine writes a weekly column for The Irish Times, which you can find here.

Ashe is a social entrepreneur as well as a SME business owner and has extensive financial and staff management experience as the CFO of Gorilla Design. She believes deeply that the key to a sustainable future is to establish more native wildness in our cities in partnership with communities.

Amy has worked at management level in social enterprises in Ireland and in the non-profit arts sector in the Netherlands for most of her career. In her spare time, Amy volunteers for Kildare Wildlife Rescue.

Pocket Forest have pioneered their own method of planting native trees, shrubs and groundcover plants in small urban areas. They follow one of the Miyawaki techniques. Akira Miyawaki is a Japanese botanist who pioneered a technique for growing a forest of native trees. This method involves dense, mixed planting of native species, replicating the diverse layers found in natural forests.

Since 2020 communities have created more than 100 pocket forests ranging in size from a ping pong table to half a tennis court. Over 1,500 children, women, and men have participated in their workshop-based approach, where they learn to repurpose waste to enhance soil health, plant native Irish trees and shrubs, and nurture them, all while promoting mutual care and respect for the environment. The results in four years speak for themselves, see the impact report and details here https://www.pocketforests.ie/our-impact and see some of the prestigious award listed below:

Awards

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Impact Programme awardee 2023

Oakfield Trust Social Enterprise Grant awardee 2023

Winner of the Circular Economy Hotspot Dublin 2023 – Legacy Project
Royal London Changemakers awardee 2022