The international community of Auroville began in 1968 on an eroded and degraded plateau 12 kilometres north of the city of Puducherry. The inspiration and guidance for the creation of this experiment in Human Unity comes from the teachings and philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The long-term aim is to create a city of around 50,000 people drawn from all the different cultures around the world. Fifty years after its inception there is now a thriving permanent community of over 3,000 people, and a comparable floating population of students, volunteers, visitors and well-wishers who are involved in the life of the town. However, to get to this point has not been an easy journey, as the initial conditions were extremely challenging.
Back in the 60s, the land was eroded and treeless. The fertile land was lost to the sea, as the bare sandy soils were highly susceptible to the intense rains of the monsoon. In many places, the topsoil was gone and deep canyons had been carved into the landscape of red laterite subsoil. Leaving the land only fit for wandering herds of goats to graze on the seasonal grasses that still managed to grow in the short post-monsoonal season. In the hot summer months, the area was empty and lifeless.
For the early settlers of Auroville, it was clear that the major imperative was to stop the loss of soil to the rains through water harvesting, and to create shelter from the sun and dust storms by planting trees. The seedlings of the initial plantations came from outside nurseries and were of mixed origin. Some were ornamental trees found in commercial nurseries; others were exotic pioneer species promoted by the government nurseries. The plantations were experimental as the conditions were harsh and many of the more ornamental species failed to make it through the summer months. So there was a process of selection; the knowledge of successful species was shared amongst the earlier pioneers, and consequently, in the following years, the trees more adapted to the tough conditions were planted in greater numbers.
Most notable amongst these was a tree from North West Queensland in Australia, Acacia auriculiformis. This tree ticked all the boxes and more. It managed to survive through the extreme summer temperatures and withstand the hot drying winds that raced across the plateau before the advent of the summer monsoon. It had the ability to fix its own nitrogen, which was extremely advantageous as the eroded soils were poor in nutrients. And it grew quickly, gaining enough height and girth after the first couple of growing seasons to take its growing tips away from the goats and cattle that still roam the plateau and manage to break the fences created to protect these initial plantations. Other species, such as Acacia holosericea, Cassia siamea, Khaya senegalensis and some species of Eucalyptus, to name a few, also managed to establish and contribute to the young emerging forests of Auroville.
As the forest started to flourish, the immediate emergency was dealt with, shade was established and a liveable environment created. People’s time and energy were no longer solely dedicated to the protection and nurturing of the initial plantations. Interest in what would have been the natural forest cover of the area emerged, and a small group began to explore the local area searching for clues and remnants. It was from this initial curiosity that the presence of the temple groves was discovered, which led to the development of a systematic study of the native vegetation. Species were identified from existing floras; seeds were collected, germination techniques established, and gradually, the tree nurseries of Auroville filled up with an ever-increasing diversity of native species. Fortuitously, these evergreen species of the TDEF are adapted to establish in the shade of mature forest, and so they managed to fit neatly under the emerging canopy of the newly planted forests of Auroville.
Once again, a living experiment began, to understand the techniques required to recreate a native, evergreen forest. This work continues today in Auroville, with many rare and threatened species now well established in the forest, many of them seeding and naturally regenerating themselves. And it is these species that you can find in this book, that now make up the forest of Auroville.
The Auroville Botanical Gardens was established in August 2000 to study, conserve and restore the endangered TDEF forests. Initially, the land was devoid of any tree cover, but since then, the 50-acre site has been transformed into an ecologically rich landscape, that serves as an area for research into environmentally sustainable approaches to land management and plant conservation, as well as a location for environmental and horticultural education.
The gardens are now well established as a centre of environmental education for the schools of the local bioregion and every year there are a number of training courses that pass on the knowledge required for undertaking ecological restoration projects to mature students.
Within the gardens, there are a number of distinct areas, such as the conservation forest, which, after the initial plantation with native TDEF species, has been left alone to develop as a sanctuary area. Adjacent to this is the arboretum, which has more of a park-like atmosphere, and is home to over 250 species of tropical trees, both native and non-native. And then there are the speciality gardens, which house extensive collections of plant types, such as orchids, ferns, cactus, cycads, plumerias, bamboos etc.
The development of the gardens has been a step-by-step process, with ideas manifesting as and when the funds are available, which depends on the income generated by outside projects the team at the gardens are able to work on. Over the past 15 years, numerous landscaping and restoration projects around India have been undertaken, and over a million native trees have been grown and dispatched to planting projects from the nursery at the garden. In recent years the scale of the projects has increased, with the undertaking of large eco-restoration initiatives at the exhausted mines of Ramco Cements. These projects are still active and expanding; to date, they have covered over 300 acres and in the next three to four years these areas will more than double. The aspiration of the team at the Auroville Botanical Gardens is to train more young people through the annual Ecological Horticultural Course so that more projects of this scale can be initiated with an ever-increasing circle of participating individuals, companies and institutions.
Excerpted with permission from Trees of South India: Native Trees and Shrubs of the South Indian Plains and Hillocks, Paul Blanchflower and Marie Demont.