Growing timber and firewood for Auroville

India faces a drastic shortage of timber and firewood, and Auroville is no exception, its forests notwithstanding. Over the years, Auroville foresters have introduced the drought-resistant ‘Work’ tree’ from Australia and have focused on re-growing the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forests (TDEF) that once were indigenous to the Coromandel Coast, collecting seeds from small remaining TDEF groves and setting up TDEF nurseries. These nurseries have since provided most of the TDEF shrubs and trees that now thrive in Auroville and which have also been sent to other places such as the Tholkappia Poonga (also known as Adyar Poonga), the 58-acres ecological park in the Adyar estuary area of Chennai.

But the Auroville planners and foresters have given no or only little thought to the timber and firewood needs of the growing township. In a recent report published in Auroville’s internal weekly News and Notes, the Forest Group reported that timber stocks from cyclone Thane are slowly decreasing, and that there is not enough firewood available for Auroville’s bakeries and pizzerias. Also the Auroville potters, who depend on casuarina wood to fuel their kilns, are facing higher prices and supply problems. No timber or firewood is grown commercially in Auroville, and the few timber-quality trees that the foresters harvest are often sold outside because of price differences.

In this issue we report on the work of five Auroville wood working units. The timber they use comes from trees that went down in cyclone Thane, or is old wood salvaged from crumbling houses elsewhere in Tamil Nadu.

This is a comparatively recent development. Ten years ago, timber such a kalimardu, pillarmardu and kong could more easily be purchased. Today, these woods have vanished from the markets or are only available at astronomical prices. They have been replaced by other woods such as merbau (intsia sp.) and African padauk (Pterocarpus soyauxii), but these too are now endangered.

It is to the credit of the Auroville wood workers that they categorically refuse to work with imported tropical hardwoods as they are aware that rampant logging in poor South Asian countries leads to environmental disaster. But wood from cyclone Thane is diminishing. From where will the future township get its timber? Even if aluminum is used for window frames (and the mining of bauxite too is facing environmental concerns), still wood will be required for doors and furniture. Even using old wood has its limits, if it implies the demolishing of India’s heritage houses such as those with Madras roofs.

The solution, evidently, is to grow our timber and firewood ourselves. Timber trees which we can grow in Auroville include ‘Integral Wisdom’ tree (Albizia lebbeck), ‘Wisdom’ tree (Samanea saman), ‘Work’ tree (Acacia auriculiformis), ‘Transformation’ tree (Millingtonia hortensis), khaya and a few others. For firewood, casuarina can easily be grown, as is demonstrated in the many casuarina plantations around Auroville.

Running a tree plantation, however, is very different from planting a TDEF forest and the required knowledge of cultivation techniques may not be available.

One possible approach is that the new Land Board, in consultation with the Town Development Council, would identify which of Auroville’s extensive landholdings will not be required for the city for the next 20-30 years and allocate them for tree plantations. To the extent that know-how is not available in Auroville, professionals could be hired, and funds be made available to run these plantations and do research on what trees can best be planted.

A more immediate step could be to ban all sales of Auroville timber and firewood outside Auroville. As price is an issue, the foresters should be compensated according to the outside market prices, and the wood be stocked till such time that an Auroville unit buys it. Those who use wood could be asked to donate some of their profits to a fund for growing tree plantations.

Wood is becoming scarce. The Mother spoke about Auroville being a self-supporting township. Should this not include our needs for both timber and firewood?