i went out to sabhana forest again to hear their spiel for their friday night tour. it was very heartening. a lot of the ideal of auroville involves a gift economy, people doing what they love and trusting they will be taken care of. although in the rest of auroville they are charging money. at sabhana forest they rely on gifts. it seems this philosophy has worked well for these folk. they brought 100 of us out for their friday night talk on buses, told us what they were up to, fed us and showed us an ecomovie. they have expanded to several small other communities in india and to kenya and haiti as well.
their work on this 70 acre site is to bring back the ecosystem that was wiped out. they base their system on ahimsa and believe this means a vegan diet. they live in the tamil fashion, again coconut leaves over bamboo. their main unit is a magificant 3 story affair where i sat on a very hot day experiencing a cool and comfortable climate. they cook with rocket stoves to use minimal wood. they have a very fancy system of compost for humanure that involves finally placing the humanure on the forest trees. they are not growing hardly any food here. this i believe is a mistake. what if the ecosystem could include at least some fruit. this is an old argument of course. it just seems that sustainability without food growing is not sustainable.
they practice unschooling. this means to them that the kids do not have to study anything. folks who want to work with the children ask them what they want to learn and act as facilitators for that learning, rather than agendas for what the kids need.
their mission here in auroville is to recreate the ecosystem that has been almost wiped out by folks harvesting all the wood from the forests. they are doing a lot of water works including digging large ponds again all over auroville to bring the water table up. the person that gave me a tour had disdain for the acacia tree from australia which is springing up all over. he did mention that one small area where they had got the trees in the proper balance, the acacias had died out.
this acacia of course can grow with a lot less water and has the job in addition to or because of being nitrogen fixing of growing where nothing else will to bring back the soil. (sorry my simplistic version) . in permaculture we use these trees for chop and drop in such places as palestine where water is very low and desert is so basic that supposedly fruit trees will not grow. and voila with these and other “forest trees” the fruit food forest grows and produces fruit.