The Embassy of Israel in India, in collaboration with a non-profit entity, has officially joined the 'Million Miyawaki' project, a community-led initiative aimed at improving air quality in Indian cities through mass afforestation in tight urban spaces, officials said on Monday.

Under this project, efforts are made at planting a million trees in Delhi-NCR by creating 'forest-like' Miyawaki plantations of 600 trees each, with a variety of up to 30 different locally-sourced species, the embassy said in a statement.

The embassy in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Million Miyawaki Foundation, a non-profit entity, officially joined the 'Million Miyawaki' project, a community-led initiative aimed at improving air quality in Indian cities through mass afforestation in tight urban spaces, it said.

The embassy said it joined the 'Million Miyawaki' initiative as part of Earth Day celebrations.

Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon led the participation in the project by planting trees, along with children of a local school, building awareness among the youth towards environmental sustainability, the statement said.

"Our collective goal is to help plant one million trees in and around Delhi-NCR using the Miyawaki technique, which helps grow trees to their adult height in just two years, thus helping absorb more CO2 faster. Doing this at scale will certainly improve air quality around this region," Sahil Sethi, a co-founder of Million Miyawaki Foundation, was quoted as saying in the statement.

Juhi Kilachand, another co-founder of Million Miyawaki Foundation, said, Miyawaki is a technique developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki in the 1980s that helps grow fully grown dense forests (20 feet high) in a short time (two years), revolutionising the paradigm of urban afforestation by transforming small plots into mini-forests.