Sadhana Forest Core Values

Whan Aviram and Yorit began reforesting Sadhana Forest, their aim was to inspire a community in which they would be able to live and raise their children based on particular core values. here are some of the values that I have observed at Sadhana Forest:

-Seva: Sadhana Forest was founded as an act of seva, which is a sanskrit word meaning "selfless service." This has conceptually been around since ancient times, and relies on the realization that meeting the needs of the whole of the community is meeting the needs of the "self," since the wellness of one depends on the wellness of others. Seva is artfully giving with no particular expectation of recieving, where the act is a gift to everyone involved. In Sadhana, this value has been applied daily. A list of tasks that need to be performed in order for the community to run are have been agreed upon every Sunday, and volunteers can choose to pursue any of the jobs as a week long commitment. Otherwise, volunteers gather every morning before dawn for a "Seva Circle" and express additional community needs for the day, in which volunteers can then commit to a responsibility for that day.

Examples of Sevas include:
-tree planting and hole digging (of course!) an tree care which includes watering trees, mulching and applying natural pesticide.
-Kitchen: volunteers can choose to work in the kitchen preparing brekfast, lunch or dinner for the community (including and guests/visitors that drop by- usually cooking for about 100 people in the evening)
-"Bees and Termites"- this usually involves primarily removing and plants that are encroaching on wood huts and removing them if they are making it easier for any unwanted species to infest the hut and includes patroling for infestation or nests.
-Wood Chopping- all fire wood is gathered from loose wood in the forest and chopped for cooking meals
-Zero Waste Hut: This involves sorting ALL of the thrown away objects aka MOOP (Matter Out of Place :) ) and putting it "in place." A service called eco-services in Auroville collects all of the plastic, paper, and metal. Cardboard is reused as mulch in the forest, paper is used to start fire in the kitchen, non-syntheic fabric and food and composted, plastic bags are stored for reuse, and some objects are collected to use in the community for building purposes or any other creative needs.
-Toilet, wasting stations and bathroom cleaning
-"Compost and Compound:" holes are dug to fill with food waste. waste from the toilets are stirred, composted and used as fertilizer in the forest. Urine is also used as a fertilizer for new baby trees.
-Washing Solar Panels

- Gift Economy: Sadhana was created without the goal of monetary gain, but with the purpose to give freely to others. Yorit and Aviram were given stewardstip of this 70 aces of degraded and empty land based on their own commitment to transform it. the first volunteer at Sadhana came unexpextedly, with the willingness to support others that he didn’t know, and Yorit and Aviram had the openness to accept his gift. One volunteer has expressed, "Each of us has given without the expectation of receiving. Each of us knows the rewards of doing so. Sometimes the joy felt by those giving can even seem to outweigh that of the ones receiving."

here is a link in which Jamey, who has volunteered at Sadhana Forest for many years, discribes his experience with gift economy:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-02-10/experiencing-the-gift-economy

-Abstaining from eating or using animal products and not using animal labor "vegan eating." Living here, I have acknowledged that the intelligence of human beings does not entitle us to control animals, but instead I see how our consciousness and high intellect, if anything, translates as responsibility to identify how to do little harm and live in harmony with other beings.
 Food is sourced primarily from nearby organic farms and every meal I have eaten there has contained nothing that used to be an animal- including dairy. I have been feeling well norished and satisfied by the taste-- it has been difficult not to habitually over eat because I enjoy the food so much (and there is so much available! Also, I have gotten to experience a creative blend of different cultural traditions and cuisines in each meal!

-Non-violence

-Abstaining from acting competitively

-Human Unity: Sadhana is "owned by noone." People of all nations and creeds are welcome to contribute and work together if they agree with the intention of the project and volunteers have come from all over the world.

Hello! I have officially been at Sadhana Forest, a reforestation project in Tamil Nadu, India, for about two weeks now. I flew directly from California to help with this project. I have observed that Sadhana Forest, India is a place where people have come together to create community surrounding sustainable human systems that relate symbiotically to the earth and environment and create a positive impact on the world by bringing the skills that they have acquired throughout their life and contributing them in any way that they can.

It took me a bit of time to observe and interact with the people and systems that go on here and adjust to a new environment, but I am beginning to feel excited to share the concepts that I have learned here with you and share any inspiration that I have come by.

 

A brief history of Sadhana Forest:

I have learned that before 1968, when reforestation and organic farming efforts arrived in this area of Tamil Nadu, the entire area was a completely barren and arid desert. Scholarly texts and archaeological findings show that 250 years ago, this area was once a dense and lush Tropical dry Evergreen Forest, an ecosystem that was unique only to India and Sri Lanka and once had elephants and tigers, as well as a kingdom of which some villages here are still remnants. Due to human extraction of resources throughout French and English colonization of Tamil Nadu (including wood extraction, farming and grazing of cows) the forest was removed and the soil was depleted. Without the tree cover, the micro climate of the forest was gone, leaving the sun to beat down directly on the soil and it became dry. Frequent dust storms and heavy monsoon deluges striped the area of its topsoil, creating ravines in which any rain water would flow directly to the sea, thus depleting the aquifers. Without water or fertile soil, the entire area became bare. Villagers who remained in the area faced poverty and and scarcity, as some walked 2 kms to fetch water and grew millet in unfertile fields. Efforts to conserve and replenish the indigenous landscape of the area began in 1968 using organic farming methods, forest cultivation and the creation of botanical gardens.

Sadhana Forest was started when two adults, Aviram and Yorit, and a child, moved from Isreal to Auroville on December 19th 2003 because they wanted to live a life that is centered around the idea of Seva.

"Seva: The Art of Selfless Service. ... “Seva” is a Sanskrit word meaning “selfless service” or work performed without any thought of reward or repayment. In ancient India seva was believed to help one's spiritual growth and at the same time contribute to the improvement of a community." (mindbodygreen.com)

Their seva was to transform 70 acres of severely eroded, arid land. They began the work completely by themselves, starting with soil conservation and tree planting. They openly invited other families to come and join in the seva, and volunteers began to arrive to help with the project. Now, in a spirit of human unity, a community has continued to develop around the reforestation work values sustainable living/zero-waste and veganism.

Since it began, the Sadhana Forest project has raised the aquifer levels so that natural succession has began in some areas of the forest, water is now reaching local wells for villagers to use, planted 30,000 trees, and brought back biodiversity which includes 50 species of birds to the area (including peacocks!) They are also participating in research projects with universities about oxelogenic trees- trees which put carbon back into the ground and do not release the carbon when they die.

Here is a video created to introduce Sadhana Forest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLvpZAp13-8

Hello! My name is Samantha Wooton.

  

 If you have reached this sight, you are most likely a friend, family member, or a valued supporter of the work that I will soon embark on. If I reached out to you for your support on this project, I have immense gratitude for your engagement with my journey to Sadhana Forest. I am choosing to travel to India in October to cultivate actions that align with my own values and cultivate changes that I wish to see in the world. I hope that you enjoy getting insight about work that I do, projects that I contribute to, and experiences that I have in India.

Sadhana Forest is a project in Tamil Nadu, India that addresses environmental devastation, water scarcity and deforestation and their adverse effects on the earth. Reforestation, water conservation and sustainability are key elements of Sadhana Forest's efforts in preventing or reducing the effects of environmental and social issues. I am interested in being involved in this collective effort to bring human use of natural resources within sustainable limits because I want to make strides toward humans using resources only at a rate in which they can be replenished. The work that I will be doing at Sadhana speaks to me because it looks at some of the root causes of environmental and social issues and actively aids in the solutions. When preparing for my trip I gathered a great deal of insight about the projects and initiatives that are being enacted at Sadhana Forest. In this post, I share with you some of the information that I have learned about them through their website and my personal contact with some of their representatives.

Sharing Knowledge
I chose to pursue helping at Sadhana Forest because of the progress that I believe that they make toward sustainable recourse management by collectively sharing knowledge and allowing others to bring sustainable practices into their life at an individual level.  They aim to empower people by sharing sustainable living practices so that individuals can be more conscious of the impact that they have on the earth and their environment. I also appreciate that Sahana Forest hosts school students, university students, foresters and many others seeking knowledge so that their volunteers can then incorporate their knowledge and experience into their own lives and share sustainable practices and awareness with their local communities.

Their Projects:
Deforestation leads to an erosion of the top layer of the soil that is high in nutrients, organic mater and micro-organisms, which takes hundreds of years to restore itself naturally. Thus, erosion affects the nutrient levels that are available to new trees. Deforestation also leads to a disruption in the local ecosystem’s water cycle, causing droughts that force local farmers to migrate, and a loss of biodiversity in the region in which it occurs. According to Sadhana Forest's website, addressing the issue of deforestation is not quite as simple as planting more trees because existing damage to the top soil might already have rendered some areas as being hostile environments for trees. Thus, Sadhana Forest's approach to reforestation includes insight into the current condition of the soil in specific locations, the trees/plants that might be native to that soil, and mechanisms to revitalize and rebuild the soil that might already be negatively affected by years of neglect and overuse. They focus on planting only indigenous trees. They put a high emphasis on survival rate and use many techniques to ensure the trees are cared for with the highest regard and ensure the best possible survival chances. They believe the survival figures are more important and not the amount planted to keep a relationship of trust with locals and keep faith in the project.

Water India
Another major project in Sadhana Forest is water conservation. They are working toward achieving as close to zero water runoff as possible through re-contouring lands, building check dams (8 built so far), bunding (over many kilometers so far), and directing remaining runoff to forested areas where absorbency is high. Wherever a natural or “created” hollow exists in the area, it is dammed off to create a holding pond or lake where the water can then percolate into the soil and refill aquifers. One of their most outstanding achievements has been the dramatic rise of the local water table at a time when water levels are falling throughout the area. Their system of trenches and earth dams store over 50,000 cubic meters of rainwater. As a result of all this work, the underground water level has risen by 6 meters (20 feet) after five years of intensive water conservation. Water in local wells is now much more accessible to the local population because of this project. Wells in four nearby villages that were dry for 15-20 years are now providing water throughout the year.

Sustainable Living:
I have a huge, and growing, interest in earthen/natural building, sustainable farming, renewable energy systems, and permaculture. As an Environmental Geography major with an emphasis in resource management, I have focused my studies on the garbage, water, agriculture and urban systems that humans have created. I have realized how much further development these systems need to go through to ensure the sustainability of the societies that we have created. I have realized my individual responsibility to continue my studies about how to systematically conserve and sustain our resources.

As part of Sadhanas efforts toward a sustainable way of living, they use a hand pump rather than a tap with running water in their kitchen to conserve water, and the water is fed into an environment where plants thrive in the water, creating a nearly zero waste system. They also choose to utilize methods of compostable toilets, which I have used before on another permaculture project with great enthusiasm and success. This method turns what is considered waste in many parts of the world into a valuable resource!! Composting toilets also conserve water: flushing toilets use about 30% of a household's domestic water use. Because they are a self-contained system, no energy is expended for transportation of waste for disposal. Sadhana Forest India is also not connected to the electrical grid. As a part of our sustainable living, they chose to only use solar and human powered energy- on cloudy days they supplement energy needs with a set of four “exercise” bicycles, which charge the batteries. Sadhana Forest is also transitioning to becoming a Zero Waste Zone. This requires rethinking the inherent life cycle of all items that they use. Zero Waste philosophy seeks to imitate the life cycle of resources in nature in which nothing is wasted: only reused in another stage in the continuum. During my stay, I believe that I will have the opportunity to be much more aware of my consumption and waste-producing patterns. Sadhana upholds the slogan of “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!” 


Thank You for seeking information about my project and the information that I have gathered about how I plan to live more sustainably and learn motivate others to help conserve our resources as a global society. Thank you for your support; I look forward to sharing my experiences in India with you!