Iowa

A climate change book club needed hope. So, it decided to plant Iowa’s first mini-forest.

Published

2 years ago

May 4, 2024

A climate change book club needed hope. So, it decided to plant Iowa’s first mini-forest.

A book club that reads about sustainability, climate change and environmental justice got tired of feeling helpless and decided to organize the planting of Iowa’s first claimed “mini-forest” with the help of the city of West Des Moines and a Waukee elementary school.

“It can get pretty depressing and you feel like you can’t address issues,” reading about the topics the club does,” said Diane Ford, a Des Moines member of the book club. “We often feel overwhelmed by moving forward.”

But after reading Hannah Lewis’ book, “Mini-Forest Revolution: Using the Miyawaki Method to Rapidly Rewild the World,” and seeing the author speak at Iowa State University, the club moved forward by quite literally digging in and organizing the planting of a mini-forest at Brookview Park in West Des Moines, near Brookview Elementary School.

A mini-forest should reach maturity in about 15 years, compared to a century or more with a larger forest, Ford said.

That means the community will get the benefits to air, water, soil and education much faster from the stand of 1,200 plantings of Iowa native species in an area about the size of a tennis court, or one-tenth of an acre.

More: For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here’s why.

The mini-forest’s started on Friday and was celebrated on site by city and school officials and community members, including Brookview elementary students who helped plant throughout the day.

“This felt like something we could do,” book club member and volunteer Walter Pearson said.

Pearson said the city paid for the seedlings, donated the park land and had staff donate their time, including to auger the holes for the trees and shrubs. Other supporters included the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, the Waukee school district’s Aspiring Professional Experience high school program, Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting and more than a dozen private individuals.

What trees are in the mini-forest?

West Des Moines City Forester Paul Tauke said the trees in the mini-forest include varieties of oak, pecan, sycamore, hazelnut, birch, elderberry, ninebark, paw paw, maple and black cherry.

The city will water the stand as needed, and volunteers will weed it as needed, Tauke said.

More: New plans for West Des Moines arboretum include 300 trees, museum with crafts, playground

Part of the stand will be fenced in, while a portion will not. Tauke said that’s an experiment to see how necessary it is to have protection from deer and rabbits in order for the mini-forest to be successful.

That matters because he said he hopes the project will inspire private property owners and other schools to do their own planting.

Ann Y. Robinson, a Des Moines member of the book club, said there’s been interest in Ames and Urbandale for mini-forests. Michael Andreski, a member of the West Des Moines Community School District’s Board of Education in attendance at Friday’s event, said his district also is thinking about creating a mini-forest but has not yet picked a location.

What is a mini-forest?

The “Miyawaki Method” of densely planting a small area with native species was developed in the 1970s by the late Japanese botanist and plant ecologist Akira Miyawaki.

The New York Times reported in August 2023 that Miyawaki’s legacy is “transforming dusty highway shoulders, parking lots, schoolyards and junkyards worldwide. Tiny forests have been planted across Europe, in Africa, throughout Asia and in South America, Russia and the Middle East. India has hundreds, and Japan, where it all began, has thousands.”

According to the Times, Miyawaki got the idea from observing how clusters of indigenous trees around Japan’s temples and shrines were healthier than those in plantations or forests grown after logging.

Tauke said the secret to a mini-forest’s quick growth is the competition between the closely planted trees — they can only grow up to find sunlight, not out.

“Whatever grows best will take over the forest,” he said.

People interested in financially supporting or volunteering to take care of the mini-forest in West Des Moines can visit the city’s website at wdm.iowa.gov and search for “Brookview Park,” according to a news release from the city.

Phillip Sitter covers the western suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @pslifeisabeauty.

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Iowa

Iowa State football running back Carson Hansen to leave Cyclones

Published

1 hour ago

December 24, 2025

Press Room

Iowa State football running back Carson Hansen to leave Cyclones

Iowa State football running back Carson Hansen announced on Dec. 23 that he “will be pursuing new opportunities with my last year of eligibility.”

Hansen is the latest Cyclones star to indicate that he will transfer to another school in the wake of coach Matt Campbell’s departure to Penn State. Quarterback Rocco Becht and cornerbacks Jeremiah Cooper and Jontez Williams are among the other Iowa State standouts leaving Ames.

Hansen, a native of Lakeville, Minn., rushed for 952 yards on 188 carries during his junior season with the Cyclones. In three years with Iowa State, he compiled 1,771 yards and 19 touchdowns on the ground.

Hansen was the Cyclones’ leading rusher in 2024 and 2025.

“My three years here at Iowa State have been a life changing experience because of the people who make up Ames …” Hansen wrote on Twitter/X. “Thank you to the fans that shook Jack Trice every Saturday and for your belief in this football team.”

Campbell announced on Dec. 5 that he was leaving Iowa State after 10 years as the Cyclones’ head coach. He was quickly succeeded by Washington State’s Jimmy Rogers, who has a big job in front of him to replace the exodus of talent transferring out of Ames.

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Iowa

Iowa Supreme Court overturns doctor’s child sex abuse conviction

Published

13 hours ago

December 23, 2025

Press Room

Iowa Supreme Court overturns doctor’s child sex abuse conviction

The Iowa Supreme Court overturned the sexual abuse conviction of a West Des Moines doctor.
The court ruled that allowing the child victim to testify via one-way video violated the Iowa Constitution.
This decision is one of several that has set Iowa apart from other states on the issue of remote testimony.

The Iowa Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a West Des Moines doctor found guilty of sexually abusing a child, ruling that allowing the victim to testify via one-way video violated the Iowa Constitution.

The court on Tuesday, Dec. 23, reversed the conviction of Lynn Melvin Lindaman, a longtime central Iowa surgeon who practiced at the Lindaman Orthopaedics clinic in West Des Moines before he was charged in 2023 with second-degree sexual abuse. The case was remanded for a new trial.

The decision is the latest in a string of rulings that have set Iowa apart as the only state in the country whose highest court has barred one-way video testimony in criminal trials, even in cases involving child victims.

Those decisions already have begun reshaping prosecutions across the state and have prompted lawmakers to launch the process of amending the Iowa Constitution. The change would ultimately require voter approval.

Lindaman, now 75, was convicted after a jury trial in Polk County. Prosecutors alleged that on June 26, 2023, he committed a sex act in Ankeny against a child under the age of 10. A second count of sexual abuse was dismissed prior to trial. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 42½ years because of a prior sexual predatory offense in 1976. He also faced a separate and now-dismissed civil lawsuit from an Iowa woman who claimed he sexually assaulted her in 1975.

The Iowa Offender Search still lists Lindaman as in custody of the Iowa Medical & Classification Center.

On appeal, Lindaman argued that his constitutional rights were violated when the district court allowed the child to testify from another room via one-way closed-circuit television, rather than from the witness stand in the courtroom.

“Today’s decision from the Iowa Supreme Court is an important win for Lynn Lindaman and a major step toward a fair result,” said Lucas Taylor, the attorney representing Lindaman. “Although the court did not rule in our favor on every issue, this ruling recognizes serious errors in the prior proceedings and gives Mr. Lindaman the chance to present his defense to a new jury.”

In a 4-3 ruling issued earlier this year in State v. White, the Iowa Supreme Court agreed with that argument, holding that one-way video testimony violates the confrontation clause of the Iowa Constitution. Writing for the majority in that case, Justice David May said that “when the accused and the witness are prevented from seeing each other, there is no face-to-face confrontation, and the Iowa Constitution is not satisfied.”

The ruling came despite U.S. Supreme Court precedent allowing such testimony and laws in many other states permitting it. Under the Iowa statute the court overturned, judges had been allowed to authorize remote testimony by minors, or witnesses with mental illnesses or disabilities, if a judge found that “trauma caused by testifying in the physical presence of the defendant … would impair the minor’s ability to communicate.”

The White decision arose from an Osceola County case, but its effects have since spread and courts across Iowa have begun hearing challenges from defendants convicted in cases where one-way video testimony was used.

Following the ruling, Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for the Polk County Attorney’s Office, said at least five Polk County defendants convicted under similar circumstances could be entitled to new trials.

One of those defendants, Michael Dunbar, already has received a new trial. Dunbar was resentenced after the victim testified in person from the witness stand, and the court again imposed a life sentence.

Dissent fuels push to amend Iowa Constitution

The State v. White ruling has drawn sharp criticism from prosecutors and state leaders, including Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who has argued the decision unnecessarily traumatizes child victims.

Bird has proposed a constitutional amendment to allow children to testify remotely in certain cases. The measure has passed both chambers of the Legislature once and must pass again before going to voters in a statewide referendum.

“Children shouldn’t be forced to testify at arm’s length from their abusers, and many kids can’t. This opinion shows how important it is to restore protections for a child victim to testify remotely,” Bird said in a Tuesday statement to the Des Moines Register. “Our office will continue to fight for a constitutional amendment to ensure kids are protected and abusers are brought to justice. We are grateful our effort has received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Iowa Legislature.”

Justice Thomas D. Waterman, writing in a dissent in the opinion issued Tuesday, rejected the majority’s historical interpretation of the confrontation clause.

“Thunder comes during rainstorms; it does not follow that thunder requires rain. That video testimony was not used in 1871 tells us more about technology than it does about constitutional interpretation,” Waterman wrote.

He also said there is “no historical evidence that the framers of the Iowa Constitution intended a different meaning for confrontation rights than the Sixth Amendment,” and warned that the majority was reading requirements into Iowa’s Constitution that do not exist in its text.

Nick El Hajj is a reporter at the Register. He can be reached at nelhajj@gannett.com. Follow him on X at @nick_el_hajj.

This story was updated to add new information and to correct an inaccuracy.

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