The Black Cockatoo Pocket Forest is a project initiated by community group Transition Town Vincent (TTV) Our aim is to help
White-tailed black cockatoo feasting on Acorn banksia
inner city residents and others to transform their yards and courtyards into habitat for Black Cockatoos while creating a cooler, healthier and more sustainable living environment.
Our initial focus is on growing a demonstration Black Cockatoo Pocket Forest on a small area of land allocated to us by the City of Vincent adjacent to the existing Britannia Community Food Forest (opposite the new skate space off Britannia Road, Leederville).
The main planting day is National Tree Day on Sunday 27th July. To register as a volunteer with the project either as a planter or some other capacity go to this page.
Project NewsFundingNational Tree Day advised in early April that we were successful in our bid for a grant to fund the acquisition of plants for the Black Cockatoo Forest (loud cheer). The City of Vincent have advised that we have been successful in being allocated environmental grants for two projects:
International Pocket Forest organisation SUGi have also allocated funds to our project. EventsOn Saturday afternoon 21st June there will be a showing of the Black Cockatoo Crisis documentary in West Leederville. More details and tickets can be obtained here. TTV will also have a small space to field questions about our project. On Monday 14th July TTV will be showing the documentary Making a Mini-forest as one of our monthly movie nights. Dr Grey Coupland will follow the movie with information about the pocket forests program she has run with 17 schools in WA. Get more information and tickets here. Join us on Sunday afternoon 27th July for our planting of the inaugural Black Cockatoo Pocket Forest. There will be a Welcome to Country and Smoking ceremony and we hope to get Rex the Black Cockatoo along also. To register as a planter for the project go to this page. Project briefings and short walking toursThere are regular project briefings and short walking tours associated with the Black Cockatoo Forest project on every second Sunday between now and the planting which is scheduled for National Tree Day on 27th July. These will occur at the existing Britannia community food forest as follows:
 Showing residents some of the trees to be planted in the Black Cockatoo forest
Please:
Contact Ian at ian.kininmonth@ttv.org.au to register your interest or just turn up. CompostingWe are co-composting biochar with food scraps e.g. coffee grounds, vegetable scraps with the aim of incorporating this into the soil (sand) just before planting day. A number of community members are involved with this. Main composting days and times are:
 Co-composting with biochar for the Black Cockatoo forest |
Black cockatoo feasting on acorn banksia.Specific objectives of the Black Cockatoo Forest project are:
- To provide residents and others with a local demonstration of how to transform urban land and soil into a carbon sink focusing on providing native habitat for Black Cockatoo’s.
- To build the capacity for residents and others to restore soil carbon and biodiversity in inner city yards and courtyards.
The site will provide a local demonstration of how to restore habitat and soil carbon using the principles developed by Dr Akira Miyawaki and adapted to Perth conditions by Dr Coupland. It will also provide a training ground for those residents who want to establish a pocket forest in their yard or courtyard as part of their My Healthy Soils Project. Pocket forests:
- Can be achieved with as little as 3 square metres of area
- Contain 3 to 5 native plants per square metre
- Reach maturity up to 10 times faster than traditional planting methods
A key part of the Miyawaki methodology is building up the soil organic matter and carbon before planting and colonising it with microbes from nearby bushland. A major point of difference to other pocket forests established in Perth will be the use of FOGO compost and biochar in the initial soil preparation which will provide the resistant carbon e.g. charcoal found in natural soils. The site will also be colonised with soil organisms (e.g. bacteria, fungi) from nearby bushland. In this way, restoration of the soil biodiversity will receive similar attention to the above ground biodiversity.
The origins of the Black Cockatoo Forest can be traced back to two events which TTV hosted in 2024. The showing of the documentary Black Cockatoo Crisis highlighted the plight of Black Cockatoo’s across south western Australia and in particular the ongoing loss of habitat and associated tree canopy cover in urban Perth. Subsequently we were inspired by Dr Grey Coupland’s talk Pocket Forest’s for the Inner City which we hosted in September which provides a pathway for restoring habitat in the inner city, starting with the underlying soil.
Schedule of activities
| Task | Status | Notes |
| Project plan | Done | |
| Site plan | Done | |
| Flora survey | Done | |
| Plant list | Done | |
| Soil analysis | To do | |
| Order/acquire plants | In prep. | |
| Prepare compost and biochar | In prep./Ongoing | Biochar being inoculated with compost |
| Source soil microbes | To do | |
| Planting day (National Tree Day 27/7/2025) | To do | |
| Monitoring | To do | |
| Communication plan | To do | |
| Prepare educational material | In prep./Ongoing |
Volunteer
The planting day on 27th July is just the beginning of the project. Our main aim is to learn from this process and to empower the community in being able to establish more pocket forests on both public land across the inner city as well as on private land. To volunteer with this project or to be kept up to date with project news please email info@ttv.org.au
More information
For more information about pocket forests check out this website, video or listen to this podcast. This series of videos provides a very good overview of the process.
The Eddystone Primary School Pocket Forest site after 22 months
For further information contact ian.kininmonth@ttv.org.au
Location of the proposed pocket forest
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